Lost In Translation

So a few days ago, I went out searching for the barbershop that I went to last week to no avail. I saw a few other ones but I wanted to go back to the same guy to become a "regular" and maybe get discounts and all that type of good stuff. But I kept walking/searching, and somehow stumbled into a bike shop. I need a bike because I want to be able to just go on 마눈(many) journeys to different places. Yes my Korean is nice, son! So I try telling the bike seller that I was looking for a bike with a low price. And I made a hand gesture moving down like "looooowwww". So he point to a few and says "55" and "59". Which I thought he meant 55,000won, and 59,000 won which is pretty cheap for a brand new bike. So I'm like "bet" I want the 55 one!

He fixes it up a little, and I go to pay for it. They swipe my card and say that I don't have enough money(He knew a little English). And I'm like ???????? Did I get robbed? Because I was sure I had that in my account. Last time I checked I had like 450,000 won, so I was shook! So he points to the print out and it says that 45 went through, but not 55. But he also says I didn't get charged for anything yet. At this point I'm thoroughly confused so I told him I would go to my bank and then come back.

I check my account, and it says 1,061 won. Then the right half of me says "You better pick that up!" Then the left side of me says "Pick up what?" The right side of me says "Your bottom jaw!" Because I was baffled. I go get one of the Korean counselors at my school to come back to the bank with me because the tellers speak damn near no English, and the teller says I have a charge, from a bike store, for 450,000 won. And there you have it, Lost In Translation. This guy was saying 55, 59, which sure does sound like 55,000/59,000 more than 550,000/590,000 to me! Double U Tee Eff! Plus he said that I wasn't charged for anything yet!

So we go back and tell him "Look you playin wit my money, and playin wit my money is like playin wit my emotion!" Lol nah I didn't say that but I just ended up getting a refund for the 450,000 won that he made sound like 55/59, that he also said he didn't charge me for. 정말? I told you my Korean is nice, son! Translate that one yourself! Learn something!

Not sure what else to write so:
That's what it's all about, A.Jizzle out!
(If you haven't noticed by now that's gonna be my famous tag line.)

1st week of teaching and a few other things.

When I started this blog I planned on writing more frequently than I actually did/do. I don't know where my time goes because it only takes a few minutes to throw a few thoughts together and type them in.

With that being said, my first week of teaching is officially over. I was supposed to start my second week, with all new students today but due to a certain reason I'll not mention, I have about a week off.

(Rewind) I'll talk about training before I talk about the first week. This training was possibly the most time/effort I'd put into anything since, uhh, probably never. We had a few different test and had to "mock teach" by standing in front of the trainer and other trainees and teach as if we were in the classroom. The test were fairly easy but the mock teaching is where I started off slow. My main weakness was my energy which I drastically improved on by the end of training which is why I still have a job.

Monday night I didn't study much, because I was hanging out with my flight buddy/tour guide June, but T/W/Th nights I didn't stop studying/prepping till I was dozing off with a pen in my hand. Why? The pressure not to fail was immense because if you didn't pass training, you got kicked out of the hotel, and told to find your own way back home. I know, freaking crazy right? I'm a pretty level-headed guy but that last day of training had me more nervous than 2 girl scouts showing up at R.Kelly's door.

I was also kind of nervous that 1st day of teaching but not so much as training. More so just curious as to how things would go. Overall, I feel like I did a pretty good job teaching and handling the students when they got rowdy. But there were two major hurdles that were kind of hard to overcome. 1. Each term is 13 weeks long, and I started teaching in the last week of a term, the 13th week, and the students took there big test during week 10, so they were sort of like "blaaaahhh" the whole week. 2. They were used to their old teacher(Akil, who is also black, who also is from Ohio(Cincinnati), who also went to Ohio State, what are the odds?) So yeah as I was saying they were used to their old teacher so when I came in doing everything with a different methodology than he did, they would complain because it wasn't what they were used to. I have a lot more patience than most so the complaining and rowdiness didn't really get to me. But there was this one little "Denace the Menace, Problem Child, Bart Simpson, and every other bad character you can think of" acting kid that I just wanted to 4-Horsemen chop across the back of his neck to shut him the hell up!

On to a different subject, I went trying to find a barber shop last week. And was about 96% unsuccessful till I just hopped in a taxi and made a shaving motion with my hand over my head to the driver and said "jalra" "jalra" which means cut. But he still didn't know what I meant. So he called an English speaking service and I told them. After that, the driver still didn't know where to go so we basically drove a round in circles for 10 minutes till he stumbled upon one. I go inside and tried to get the barber to understand that I wanted a bald cut, but it didn't work. There just so happened to be another guy in there getting his hair cut who I presumed to be a white guy who didn't know much Korean. Come to find out, he's 100% fluent in Korean, and English, and 11 or so other languages! So I sit in the chair, say thanks and all that, he asks where I'm from, I say Cleveland. He says "No shit, I'm from Cleveland Hts.!" Can you say the world is smaller than stem cells three times fast? Not only that, we some more and come to find out, he's 100% Indian! But looked like a regular white guy! He showed me a pic of his family and his mom, dad, and brothers are all darker than me! I think he said he had some type of albinoism.

Not sure what else to write so:
That's what it's all about, A.Jizzle out!