Had a fantastic visit with Scott and Heana. The Alaska Mining Company where we went for breakfast wasn’t that bad. After all, it is a recreation of American diner comfort food outside of America. I had the chicken fried steak and eggs and hash browns and it was tasty. Unfortunately, Scott’s eggs benedict weren’t of the same quality. It was a crowded place though because it was pictures with Santa for all the families on base and in the area. So you’ve got all the kids running to get on Santa’s lap, and a UFC fight in the background. With the time difference it’s the perfect Sunday brunch backdrop. Afterwards Scott gave me a tour of the base and then we relaxed, got some school work done (all three of us) and had some take out. Max (Scott’s bulldog) was hilarious because he was pissed when I walked in the door originally, but soon figured out I was going to play with him and that made me a buddy. We fought over his rope and I tried my hardest to wear him out. Unfortunately he was hell bent to show me his favorite “trick” and would proceed to make one of the blankets feel really good on the couch. It brought tons of laughs. Well from me at least.
Last night I Skyped with mom and dad and took them on a video tour of my apartment. It took a little longer than you’d expect, but not that long. Unfortunately it got started late because right before I was going to call them I was putting away my groceries and I totally butterfingered an egg onto the floor and it was fun to clean up. Got me a good-size soup/wok/skillet thing that was on clearance for 2.50 and I think the reason that it was on sale was it’s a one person size (or at least a one Byron size) and thus wouldn’t be good family meals. I keep saying there will be a post about the apartment with pictures for the blog and there will be. I just need to make a mental note (and I just made a written one) to transfer my pictures that were on Facebook onto a flashdrive so I can write a proper post on my work computer. That way I have nice things such as indents and spellcheck. God bless spellcheck.
While visiting Heana and Scott I used their laptop and Heana’s Korean know how to set-up my wireless router. The directions were in Korean, but for the most part I could figure out what it wanted me to do from dealing with routers back in the states. Needless to say though I was excited that I wasn’t going to have to go to one of the coffee shops around work in order to use the internet. I plug it in when I got back home and nothing. I figured it was either a weak signal coming through the wall or there wasn’t any signal as I had been told. I went to work a little frowny-faced because I thought I had fixed my internet woes. I come home and I’m looking at my bed, beckoning to me, and I notice that there was another LAN wall jack on the other side of the room. Plugged into this one and success.
CSI, NCIS and those types of shows are really interesting here in Korea. They’re the same shows, maybe a couple of months behind, but the really funny part of them is the Korean censoring that takes place before they air. Especially when there is an autopsy scene for example whenever they show the body the entire thing is blurred out. It makes me laugh because the dialogue concerns what you seen, but the picture is mutilated because of the goriness. The same goes for episodes where a knife is involved. Guns are ok. There can be a shootout with blood and people getting shot to bits and it won't be blurred. I really want to see though when they start showing Sons of Anarchy over here if that is truly the case as there are a few instances that I can think of in particle that would push this Korean sense of cultural protection. Knives though, get blurred out when someone is held hostage, stabbed, or waving it around like a menacing killer. Makes me laugh when the suspect is standing behind a victim on an episode of Criminal Minds and all you see is a blur over their neck. Wonder what that could be?
Finally, I went through minor drama involving my passport. The train system here had asked for my passport number when I was reserving a ticket so I thought that it was needed to travel. I had been keeping it in my back pocket with my wallet (since been changed). Whenever I arrived home after visiting with Scott and Heana I discovered while unpacking that I didn’t have it with me. I sent them a message thinking that I had just left it on their dining room table as that had been where it was most of Sunday. When I arrived at work today however, my boss greeted me with a smile and asked if I had lost my passport. I responded that it was a possibility, but I wasn’t entirely sure that it was lost. He told me one of the other teachers had seen on Facebook that it was lost. Funny I thought to myself, as I hadn’t ever posted that it was lost. Turns out there’s a “Foreigners in Suncheon” Facebook group and a couple of the teachers I work with are members and saw a bulletin posted by someone who somehow or another found out that the police department was holding my passport for a few days, before sending it to the immigration office. The funny thing was the way she posted it. “If anyone knows a Byron Roscoe Davis, his passport..” I laughed to myself when I read it, because I highly doubt there’s more than one Byron in Suncheon. Thanks to my fellow teachers who were apart of this group and texted my boss, who drove with me to the police station as I was pretty early to work. We get there and I give the lady my driver’s license and she looks at me and then speaks to my boss in Korean. On the way out I was asking him if she was saying that the picture doesn’t look like me anymore. He informed me that she was saying that I look older, a lot older. Great! I would hope I still don’t look like I did while I was a freshman in college.
*** Random ***
Printed some signage for my classroom walls that I’ll decorate and hang. It’s the patterns of paragraphic organization that I’ve been teaching my older kids. When I look at it, it makes me laugh because it reminds me of the mind maps that we were instructed to post and utilize no matter what in Irving. I wonder if anyone’s ever been drawn and quartered for not doing so. A trip to Office Depot will be tomorrow on the way to work. Hopefully will score two pieces of posterboard for drawing the silhouettes of Texas and South Korea for personal décor, and I still need to make that name card for my unusually unique name that I’m proud of.
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