Well, I have been back in Canada for about 4 days now and I am incredibly bored. I have also been sick and I’ve had problems with my allergies for the last 4 days so it wasn’t been a wonderful experience.

On Wednesday I took a 2004 Hyundai Sonata out for a test drive. The salesman was a little bit overexcited and he kept asking me if I wanted to make a down payment. It seems like a nice car to drive though. However, I think I will just take my Mom’s old 1989 Isuzu Trooper for a while until I get a more stable job because I definitely can’t afford to be making car payments right now.

I ordered most of my computer parts yesterday. I had some problems with dangeo.com because I had $930 worth of stuff in my cart but when I received the invoice there was only $350 worth of stuff listed. So I spent some time on the phone working out the problem. I just hope that the parts get here before I have to go to Regina.

That’s basically all I have been doing for the past 4 days except watching Seasons 1 & 2 of both Trailer Park Boys and Futurama. My wife is on-line so I’m going to go chat with her. Later…

I just did the hardest thing of my life, I watched my wife walk away… It’s not like we won’t talk to each other later today, but damn!

Here are some lyrics to a song that fits my mood right now:

“Leaving On A Jet Plane”

I’m … I’m …

All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go
I’m standin’ here outside your door
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye

But the dawn is breakin’, it’s early morn
The taxi’s waitin’, he’s blowin’ his horn
Already I’m so lonesome I could die

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you’ll wait for me
Hold me like you’ll never let me go

‘Cause I’m leaving on a jet plane
I don’t know when I’ll be back again
Oh, babe, I hate to go

I’m …

There’s so many times I’ve let you down
So many times I’ve played around
I’ll tell you now, they don’t mean a thing

Every place I go, I think of you
Every song I sing, I sing for you
When I come back I’ll wear your wedding ring

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you’ll wait for me
Hold me like you’ll never let me go

‘Cause I’m leaving on a jet plane
I don’t know when I’ll be back again
Oh, babe, I hate to go

Now the time has come to leave you
One more time, oh, let me kiss you
And close your eyes and I’ll be on my way

Dream about the days to come
When I won’t have to leave alone
About the times that I won’t have to say …

Oh, kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you’ll wait for me
Hold me like you’ll never let me go

‘Cause I’m leaving on a jet plane
I don’t know when I’ll be back again
Oh, babe, I hate to go

And I’m leaving on a jet plane
I don’t know when I’ll be back again
Oh, babe, I hate to go

But I’m leaving on a jet plane
(Ah ah ah ah)
Leaving on a jet plane
(Ah ah ah ah)
Leaving on a jet plane
(Ah ah ah ah)
Leaving on a jet plane
(Ah ah ah ah)
Leaving on a jet plane
(Ah ah ah ah)
Leaving on a jet plane
(Ah ah ah ah)
Leaving on a jet plane
(Ah ah ah ah)
Leaving on a jet plane
(Ah ah ah ah)
(Leaving) On a jet plane

http://search.bugs.co.kr/tsearch.cgi?h=bugs&s=1&search=t&q=leaving+on+a+jet

Well, I’m leaving Korea in 26 hours. I’ve had a good time here over the last 32 months; I’ve made some money, drank a lot, and got married.

I had my last meal with my in-laws about an hour ago. Now I think we are waiting to rent a van so we can go somewhere outside of Seoul.

My last update from Korea comes tomorrow from the airport…

Well I got 350,000 won out of the 525,000 won I had been asking for the last 6 weeks of my housing allowance. I would explain why I didn’t get it all, but I am sick of even thinking about Oedae. I sent the president, Jay Lee, a nasty email yesterday stating the law and how I will be filling a formal complaint with the labor board on April 28, 2004 if they do not attempt to solve this problem. I’m sick of fighting with racist, ignorant, power-hungry people.

I went to my old institute, Daechi Wonderland, yesterday. I saw some of my old students and they asked me lots of questions, it was fun. Then, we went out and had sam-gyup-sal and drank some beer. It was okay, I got home later again, about 4:20 AM. Haha, 420!

Anyway, I gotta go and get ready to do something for my second last day in Korea.

Check it out…

Hello Kitty is smokin’!

Well, Sang Hee and I had a great trip to Cheju. The weather was pretty good except it was rainy on the last day when we left. Now it is rainy here in Seoul.

I’m still fighting with Oedae about money. They haven’t paid me my rent money for March and are now saying that I can’t get April’s rent because it is not a full month of work. They tell me this after I stayed their for 2 weeks extra out of the kindness of my heart and respect for the other teachers. So now Sang Hee is calling to bitch at them. I hate Korean business ethics, they don’t exist from what I have seen.

In other news, I sold my computer this morning so now I have to use Sang Hee’s note book until I build a new computer in Canada. That will be PC version 5.0 for me. I can’t wait, I already have the system planned out. I would like to spend more but I might have to buy a car also so I am looking at about $1600CAD for all the parts except the hard drive which I already have. Well, not an SATA one but still, it is good enough for now.

Whadup?!?!?

Well, it is my last day of work today and I got some good news while I was on the bus going to work. I was offered a position for the nameless communications company that I mentioned in my last post. It’s kind of funny how one thing finishes and another thing picks up where the other left off. Anyway, I think the job is in Regina, but I need to contact them when I get back to Canada and work out the details.

On a negative note, my current employer has decided to play games with me and re-neg on my severance pay after they said they would pay it three times. Now, I have to spend my last few days fighting to get my money which works out to be about $1500CAD. Funny thing is that I have documents written by lawyers stating the exact part of Korean law that relates to my situation and my employers said, “No!” Not surprising to see that hagwon business people lower themselves once again to prove they are among the most dishonest and scummiest people in Korea.

I guess I should get ready for my last day of class so that I don’t take out my anger on the students…

Well, I only have 2 more days of teaching after today and then I will be officially done. It’s kind of a weird feeling. I feel like I am retiring or something. I am worried about money and security so I really hope I hear some good news about that job in Saskatchewan this week.

I had a pretty farewell party on Friday. We went to a microbrewery and drank a lot of dark beer. Then we hung out outside of a convenience store for a while playing one of those games where you have to kick the ball the hardest while some other people went in and bought beer and munchies. After that we headed over to a teacher’s house and drank on the rooftop and played truth or dare. That was kind of wack, but whatever. At about 3:00 AM someone had the great idea to go to a singing room (no-rae-bang) because it would be the last chance to sing with me. So about the five of us that were left went down the street to see if any place was open. We eventually found a place was open and apparently it was an “adult” singing room but I was too drunk to remember anything descriptive about it. We sang for a long time and I guess it was about 4:30 AM when we finally left the place. Then I jumped in a Taxi and I was home by 5:00 AM.

The next morning I got up at like 9:00 AM and Sang Hee started freaking out about her license so that we can rent a car when we go to Cheju Island on Thursday. So we got ready really quickly and headed down to the DMV in Gangnam. We had to wait in for about 90 minutes because there were 123 people ahead of us. Then we went to down the street to a dog restaurant and had some really good food but it wasn’t dog. There were a lot of labour workers there so Sang Hee said it must be a good place and it was, lots of good food for cheap. Then after picking up her new license we went to TechnoMart and we got a USB HDTV device so that she can watch TV on her notebook after I sell my PC next week. It’s a pretty sweet device, but it was like $300. It is a hell of a lot better than that old, crappy Vast PCI card I have in my box right now.

Anyway, I got to go eat something before my next class. Peace!

What’s up?

Well I had a phone interview today with a communications company that shall remain nameless. It was a pretty good experience. Of course I was pretty nervous before the interview but I had done a lot of prep work, I wrote like 4 pages of answers to interview questions and then I never used them. Actually, maybe only one of the questions that I had prepared for was asked. So I probably sounded more natural, but I think I had to many “ah”s and “uh”s.

Sang Hee and I had a good time in the mountains last weekend. Note to self: post some pictures!!! Anyway, it was nice despite the fact that we spent almost 2 days travel to and from the national forest.

This is the big Easter weekend so Sang Hee’s church is giving a big sermon at the world cup stadium which she wants me to attend. I guess I have to go but it should be interesting to see the stadium full of people as long as they don’t start throwing their hands in the air and screaming about The Passion.

I got too much stuff to do still and too little time to do it in. I still have not packed or shipped anything but that shouldn’t take too long.

Damn! I just saw the trailer for Garfield: The Movie a few minutes ago and I am still in disgust. It is horrible the way hollywood takes everything and just uses it up until nobody in the world cares about it anymore. But that’s okay because Jim Davis has got to be the lasiest cartoonist on Earth.

Don’t drink and drive! (or ride a bicycle…)