the secret to not being tickled is to pretend that it is you doing that to yourself. being unticklish is a sign of comfort. that's why you're usually not ticklish with a masseuse because the very idea of it is to be comfortable.

so i went to a coffee shop called dr.fish on the weekend. most things seemed fairly normal about this coffee shop, albeit the atmosphere and coffee were awesome. the one thing unusual though were bath tub style fish tanks that were level with the floor. in the tanks of course were the dr.fish. apparently this particular type of fish nibbles at dead skin on your feet. and for a couple bucks those feet could be yours.

i sat with my feet in the bathtub fishtanks imagining in my mind that the 100 or so fish nibbling at my feet were actually my own hands somehow poking them in a thousand different places, and that it was not many tiny fish enjoying my smelly foot supper. it was probably the worst self-inflicted tickling i've had. but i kinda enjoyed it once i got used to it. i felt loved. and actually it kinda felt like when your foot falls asleep, except without your foot being asleep.

anyway, now i need to find a date that would like to go to dr.fish with me sometime.

i think it's funny in class when the question asked returns the response "poo".

but they don't say poo in english, they say it in korean. which of course requires a translation.

now ask a cute little korean girl a translation for poo and watch as she clenches her teeth and pretends to make a pushing sound. it's hilarious.

by the way, the question asked was: what would be the worst animal to have for a pet?

various stories...

i was on the bus and i was talking to a lady. her english was very broken, but like i said, i've come to appreciate that. it's endearing when they still try to talk to you. at one point she said to me:
"can I ask you a personal question?"
i thought " there isn't possibly a question you'd be be willing to ask me that is too personal" so I said "yes".
She said "are you happy with how much money you make?"
I said "why?" usually when they ask that it's because they have a job proposition.
Finally, after much struggling with language I understood what she was suggesting. she said that another english teacher told her about his job, which was similar to my except that he had to go work at many different schools. basically it is an on call english teacher job.
she told me this with amazement that i can make a lot of money doing this even more than she makes. so i said how much. she confidently wrote with her finger on a wall a number that she assumed would impress me. i quickly realized her error, and i felt very bad for her. she wrote 2,000,000 won on the wall. and i tried to say in a humble way, i make more than that. incredulous, she asked how long do you work. i said 7 hours a day. even more incredulous she asked if i work on the weekends. i said no. she was in a stupor. i tried to be humble but clearly not enough. the thing is, in korea, english teachers make a lot more than their korean counterparts. also they work a lot less, and their apartments are paid for. i try not to tell any koreans how much i make because they'll probably be jealous, and resent foreigners. it's amazing, we have such an easy job and we can make really decent money. the only drawback is that we are far from friends or family.

i have another interesting story, but this is already too long. i've gotten into a habit of writing really long notes.

PICKLE DAY

today was pickle day for my one class. what is pickle day? pickle day is when the pizza shop gives you a mini tub of sweet pickles with every pizza you order. then you collect those pickles in your fridge for the nearly 4 months you've been living there because you don't like sweet pickles. the next step is finding out that all the students like pickles. so you bring your 15 tubs of pickles into the class and announce pickle day.

the best part is when some kids realize there's an expiration date on the pickles, and most of them are expired. kids are so smart these days.

YAY PICKLE DAY

i haven't written here in a long time, and i have a lot to say. but this time i'll keep it simple. i just thought i'd show something i've come to appreciate here in korea. effort. maybe not accuracy, but effort.

so i signed up for language exchange online, and this girl started writing to me. here is what i said to her at one point:

"you are trying very hard to learn english. i like that. many people
don't want to try. we can meet someday. i'll try to help your english.
anyway, right now, i'm very tired. i need sleep."

and this is her reply:

"Oh malcolm you need the rest, i think. this time many people want to learn English always, so you should break a leg your work becasue you're a teacher. as you do that, many students follow your instuction to get the high ability. Cheer up :D until we meet someday, i'll be trying to study all my exertion! then malcolm teacher, get the enough rest time :D
Take care from snowy weather!"

i thought this reply was really cute.

so this is the korean underground. i went to a show on saturday night and saw these guys. it was kinda a strange run in. i went to the middle of seoul with a dead cell phone and no plan. i ran into a friend that lives in the same building, and we ended up seeing this show. it's amazing how a live show can make some guys sound a million times better. the lead singer was awesome, he looked high the whole show, but he wasn't because koreans don't do that.

anyway, this video is awesome in it's amateurish-ness. i especially love when they get kicked out of no where by a lady-cop because they we're doing... actually not too much. really badass.

I was reading about some hush hush government stuff. interesting.

1940 - Four hundred prisoners in Chicago are infected with Malaria in order to study the effects of new and experimental drugs to combat the disease. Nazi doctors later on trial at Nuremberg cite this American study to defend their own actions during the Holocaust.

1950 - Department of Defense begins plans to detonate nuclear weapons in desert areas and monitor downwind residents for medical problems and mortality rates.

1956 - U.S. military releases mosquitoes infected with Yellow Fever over Savannah, Ga and Avon Park, Fl. Following each test, Army agents posing as public health officials test victims for effects.

read more...


This is also interesting...

A CIA document dated 10 Feb 1954 [4] describes an experiment on the creation of unsuspecting assassins: “Miss [whited out] was instructed (having expressed a fear of firearms) that she would use every method at her disposal to awaken Miss [whited out] (now in a deep hypnotic sleep). Failing this, she would pick up a pistol and fire it at Miss [whited out]. She was instructed that she would not hesitate to “kill” [whited out]. Miss [whited out] carried out these suggestions including firing the (unloaded) gun at [whited out] and then proceeded to fall into a deep sleep. After proper suggestions were made, both were awakened. Miss [whited out] expressed absolute denial that the foregoing sequence had happened.” BB 36, 37

the Stimoceiver; a miniature electrode placed within an individual’s cranium capable of receiving and transmitting electronic signals. Delgado was able to control the movements of his subjects by pushing buttons on a remote transmitter. He demonstrated his Stimoceivers by wiring a fully-grown bull. With the device in place, Delgado stepped into the ring with the bull. The animal charged towards the experimenter – and then suddenly stopped, just before it reached him. The powerful beast had been stopped with the simple action of pushing a button on a small box held in Delgado’s hand.

read more...

I'm reading this stuff as a bit of research for my comic. I know, this sounds like I'm writing another story of a secret organization doing illegal experiments on people. well, yes... kinda. but i swear this is a little different. i won't bother explaining, but i will say that so many stories are essential the same template, it's all about how they're handled that makes them good. speaking of good, and speaking of research, i'm also reading "Y, the last man" right now. a comic about a plague that strikes the entire world, that instantly kills every male on the planet except one man. read the first issue here(pdf).

I really wish this guy made it to the NBA. Actually I really wish this guy was as good and popular as LeBron James. It'd be hilarious hearing a stadium chant his name.

http://espn.go.com/nba/news/2002/0711/1404719.html

I was thinking of finding a random person on facebook, and poking them. then when they go to my pictures to see if they know me, there will be a picture of them with my face digitally imposed beside theirs.

distracted.

i spent the last couple days watching every episode of "heroes" go here: www.tv-links.co.uk
I've warned you though. it will consume you until you're caught up to the current episode. there are about 24, 43 minute episodes right now, and two 50 minute episodes. which if i do the math that means... 1132 minutes. and that means: over 19 hours. all math done in my head, i could be wrong.

anyway, i'm all caught up. and there are several ramifications.
1. my sleep has been thoroughly screwed up. which means that my functionality at work was turned down a notch. i think mostly my memory was affected by lack of sleep.

2. my attention has been diverted. formerly i really wanted to complete my story about korea. now i keep thinking about fixing up my own comic story.

3. i've thought about superpowers, and in a slightly contrived way i've motivated myself. i have wrote the words "you want your superpower for you to be constantly motivated". then i pinned these words on a board in my room. i'm basically suggesting to myself that the powers i want don't need unreal abilities.


you gotta admit though, a story that can actually stimilate you is pretty good.

The sad state of the Korean exchange rate. See that jagged line that looks like a blue outline of a mountain; that is the one year projection of what converting Korean Won into Canadian Dollars looks like. The lower the line dips, the less Canadian money I get for sending Korean money that way. As you can see at the moment, and starting since the moment of january this year, that line has been plummeting like Newton's law. What this means is, if I sent home 5,000,000won (approx. $5000) which is a realistic lump sum I may send, at the current exchange I will get $5,448.47CAD. But if I was able to send the same amount at the peak of exchange(in January), I would get about $6050.00. that's a difference of $601.53. It's absolutely annoying. I've been waiting months for the exchange to start increasing, but it just keeps going down. I think I'll just need to wait a little bit longer. I've found a 5 year plodding of the exchange rate:
It seems that this so far presents itself as a cycle; and every January the rates become much much better. So I'll wait, and hope that there's currently enough money in my bank account in Canada to hold off my monthly student loan payment until then. gah.

I just found this statistic about the average anual working hours of selected countries. and this explains a lot about koreans. and i feel even worse for them. it isn't just perception that they're working way too much. they're statistically working way too much.

japan and back. not nearly as exciting as last time. although, certain issues made it at least interesting.

i woke up at... no wait, i didn't wake up. i didn't go to sleep because we had to leave at 5am. Ben and I got on a bus to the airport flew to Fukuoka Japan in 80minutes, and found the korean consolate there with relative ease. however, we also found it to be closed for a japanese holiday. after finding our hotel at 12pm, we wasted time until 3pm, our check-in time. some of that time wasting consisted of calling our school to inform them, we really can't get a work visa in two days because one day is a holiday. later, and i believe because the lady at our school is probably a bulldog, we were informed that we actual will be able to get the visa processed in one day.

once i got into my hotel, i crashed for 5 hours. then Ben and I walked around Japan at night. Fukuoka is not a tourist destination. Ben was offered 5-10 minutes for $30. You can guess what the 5-10 minutes was for.

the next day we got our work visa. we also met some other ex-pats getting their work visas too. although they didn't have the benefit of it being processed in one day like us. we weren't allowed to tell them either. so at one point we snuck away when we had to pick up the visa. we gave some vague excuse like 'we have an appointment with someone'.

after that we came home. nothing exciting. world travel has become de-glamorized. maybe it's just because it's for business reasons. i assume that businessmen feel the same way. maybe not.

I found out that I'm mostly immune to mosquito bites. Well actually, i just confirmed it. however, it doesn't mean at all that i'm immune to incredibly annoying buzzing in my ears while i try to sleep. it's kind of funny, it took me months to learn to sleep on rock hard mattresses, and now i'm being kept awake by the bugs. anyway, i don't leave my window open anymore.

i'm mostly adapted to my new living. at least to the point where i'm singing loud enough to make you cringe, and i'm walking around naked before a shower. the beauty of living alone. korean towels don't afford you the opportunity to walk around with just a towel on, they're essentially the size of floor mats.

i went for a long walk around my town to discover it. i found the red light district, and i found a subway station that has professional looking ping pong tables set up. looks like i'm buying a paddle.

teaching english is easy. the curriculum is straight forward.

on the weekend, i climbed a mountain. a mini-mountain. i think a mountain is 1000m. what i climbed was 850m. however, you soon realize that even that leaves your legs sore for a week. the annoying thing is, you think you're special, but then you look over and see an old korean lady at the top too.

i went to a different part of the seoul metropolis. i learned that you should know where you live before you venture out. i had some bus adventures trying to find home again.

my schedule is 3-10 mon-fri. which kinda encourages my bad sleeping habits. i'll fix myself sometime.

3 days of work finished.

revelations.

my last job in korea was at a school that was completely new. everyone there knew as much about the area, and had as many friends around as the next person, which was none. granted, a couple of us had friends that lived on the other side of seoul.

the thing i now realized that i missed in my last job was the history through the carry over staff. there are intertwining friends and traditions through teacher to teacher. the best is this 3 bedroom apartment that has always had at least one old staff living in it, so when new people move in, they keep everything in the apartment, and then they add their own touch. it looks so lived in. regretfully, the school is finally letting the lease go on the apartment.

so far the job is good. easy. everything is prepared mostly. i work 3-10pm. i'm thinking of taking up the violin or cello in my free time. depending on the prices. it could be a bad idea, but i'll look into it.

the first week is not even finished, so i'll wait to give a fuller review then.

i've had a pretty bad percentage of frustration with airlines given the number of times i've flown compared to how many times i've been frustrated. and after reading many other stories of annoyance from other interwebbers, i've decided that the airline industry is pretty screwed up, and it's only getting worse with terrorist paranoia, and gas price increases.

my problems mostly had nothing to do with either issue unless you count that increased gas prices caused me to be over-elated and had me jump on a plane ticket that was half the price of every other ticket i'd seen. and that ticket i got actually turned out to be incredibly wearisome.

shortly after purchasing a one-way ticket to korea i received a phone call from the airline asking if i have all proper documentation for a one-way ticket. interesting. i of course had no follow up documentation to help me out so she told me to call the embassy and make sure that it was alright. I called several people, the embassy, the korean school I was going to work for, other friends in korea, and asked them all if it was alright. nothing seemed amiss, but nothing was absolutely definite. I figured if all else failed I had enough money in the bank in korea to allow me safe passage.

When I got to the airport it was a different story. it seems that regardless of my confidence of the flight being ok, they have an absolute no fly rule unless you have a visa, or a ticket out of the country, because if you don't then the onus is on the airline to fly you back.

I didn't understand this before, but they made it more than clear as I was standing there ready for check-in, and they wouldn't let me. They gave me a number to call to book another flight out of korea. Since i needed to fly to japan for my visa anyway i booked a flight for japan. of course i was not able to book a flight with their airline because they did not fly where i needed them to fly.

so what happens when you can say you have a ticket but you can't prove it. of course. nothing. so i said if i bought some internet time on my laptop to show the email confirmation. funny story, i ran to the other side of the airport to try and get the internet when it turned out i could get the internet right there. it cost $10 just to show an email confirmation of my ticket. and it turned out they couldn't even use that confirmation because it didn't say the ticket number.

to get a ticket number i had to go back to the payphone and call this new airline to get my ticket number from the ticket i just bought an hour ago. this process usually takes much longer, but after 10 minutes on the phone i was able to get it.

i raced to check in finally at 9:40 with my plane leaving at 10am. as i got through i luckily found out thatthe flight was delayed.

and now it's 10:20 and i'm boarding. see you in korea

it's become habit for me to stay up all night the night before I fly. Actually, I think it's kinda funny thinking I could develop a habit in regards to flying, since I never thought I'd be flying as much as I have been. I don't think I'll do or be a lot of things. Thinking this way is best for creating low expectations. And low expectations are best for quelling disappointment, or making the fulfillment of such things that much more gratifying.

I got a job in Korea. I think I got it not because I said "yes" but because I didn't say "no", if that makes sense. I think I was being the job equivalent of a playa. I sent my resume to so many jobs in Korea, and I wanted to court all of them as long as I could. When one job was offering me something, I'd only tell them no to something I definitely didn't want such as teaching kindergarten. Then they'd usually tell me that they might have another job for me, so they'd get back to me. So then the job I eventually took didn't have anything I didn't exactly dislike so I just didn't say no. I ended up in contract negotiations in gmail chat. Next thing I knew I had a job, and my ticket for Korea purchased.

The new dynamic of coveting is done through litigation.

look who's suing google.

i never really studied history, but i think in the time of kings and queens, pharoahs, and other such rulers each of which had to constantly watch their back. Greed prevails, and whoever can benefit will try to kill the ruler. Skip ahead a few years and it seems that the biggest name still has a target on them. The difference is that rather than killing, people just have to sue them.

i thought i'd write about recent events with me. but i'm not quite sure what to say that's interesting yet. i'll post some pictures from england later.

i thought of a question.

if you had access to the internet that was 5 years into the future, what would you look up, or download, or do with it?

I asked my friend and he said, what if the news talked about great imminent disaster 3 years from now, and then all of a sudden all internet activity stopped completely at that point. What would you do then?

it sounds like a movie to me. someone make it.