So the first semester is over.

Indeed. Today I finished last exam, from 5 I had: c++, accounting, Korean language (2 exams) and AutoCAD.

A lot of people asked me what-the-fuck am I doing here, so let's talk about this. And by this I mean my typical week during the first semester.

First the shit ones do everyday: 
- wake up: 7-8 in the morning - that's because you need to take shower and eat, right? I wont do a hack without shower.
- sleep: about midnight usually. At least for me the less I sleep, the better I sleep. If I go sleep like 11, I will wake up every hour. I would prefer to go sleep like 3 o'clock to have the sleep like one should have, but here, ain't a crap to do.

To school I can go by bus (8.30, 8.45) or walk like 15 minutes. From school I have to walk.

Monday

10-12 classes of Korean Culture. Teacher ain't speaking English. In the begging of semester every class she gave us tons of words to learn. Later she gave up,because we said to the right person how she explain us "Korean culture", so she started to play some documents about Korea. Guess what? In Korean language. Yes, time well spend. Last few weeks of semester she found out that there's such a thing as subtitles. Too late, but still - plus point.

12-1 and 1-6 E-ZONE - place where Korean students can come and talk to you in English - yes, they come, no, they mostly do not speak English.

7-9 another class of Korean language. Teacher speaks English, cool like pizza with beer, but.. but we are tired like hell - so the most of people don't care. Once again the way they do it is wrong.

Tuesday

9-11 c++ classes. Easy like ... too easy. They are primary schools where they teach kids to code. We go way slower than them. Total waste of time. Even for people that never had any coding classes, because what we learned in here is like one hour of payed programming course anywhere on this planet, maybe less.

11-1 AutoCAD.

2-6 E-ZONE.

Wednesday

9-12 Korean language with same teacher like Korean culture. No use for me, I don't understand her, so would be better for me to just stay home and try to study by myself. I need to do it anyway, so this class is just another 3 hours well wasted.

12-1 then 2-6 E-ZONE.

7-9 Korean class again.

Thursday

10-12 Accounting.

12-1 then 2-6 E-ZONE.

Friday

9-1 Korean class with 3th teacher, she is the same cool and speaking English. But having 4 hours of Korean language in a row is just another nonsense, from a lot nonsense I've seen in here.

2-6 E-ZONE.

Weekend

Bored (or tired) like hell. The most of weekends I can remember was a waste of time. Usually there's nothing interesting going on: you can go see something around or go see some concert (and I really mean see- sober, sitting, watching). Your best chance is to go get some beer, if you are not tired of seeing the same people.

Well, not positive post at all, but that's how I see it. 
Get drunk if you can ;]

제주도 - not impressed

Failed to enjoy the 2-night trip there, but at least I made some non-sense pictures, so I might remember I was there.

As time went...

For a quite long time I haven't wrote a shit, so I decided I need to make an update, as follows:

Not much is happening, I go to school, come back, sleep, weekend sleep. Bored as hell. Man, even hell must be more interesting than this. You know, pulling sticks in people's asses and kimchi.

One would say at least weekends should be fun, but doing all weekends the same isn't fun anymore. So I am studying, not partying. Something went wrong.  

So what (at least a bit) interesting do I have?

Remember when I talked about rock music? There's a band in here, 박치기 씨 (Mr. Headbutt), and they are releasing their CD. And guess what, my picture is their CD cover art.

 Man, I am famous!!! Kiddin, not famous.

Ha? Do not forget to come for release party! December 7th. I am proly there.

School is as I said boring. Kinda waste of time. AutoCAD, driving me crazy every week. One does not simply use his brain. Me no like turn on brain mode. Just not seeing any sense in that.

But, we had English contest here, for Korean students to show off. And I played one song (because no time for second we had) with my classmate.  Song from some dude called Mraz or that. Lucky. For me really terrible song, but you know... What would one do for money, I do for smile. We had to change girl and boy parts, but it was interesting anyway. The crap is still stuck at my head. 

 

(just saying i like the pic)

Anyway, I am planning to sort out my pictures, so I might even make some photolog. Stay tuned, get drunk!

I will @Xmas.

In EDUCATION we trust!

And let me tell you that I do not mean my homeland - Slovak Republic, but the country where I actually am - South Korea.

It's not secret that people (and I mean young and kids) spend unhealthy time at school: from morning to evening. It's not anything unusual to see kids and youngsters go from school at 9-10-11 pm. Crazy, ha?

Well, this seems unhealthy to me, because in beautiful lands of Slovakia, I've been used to came back from school 11-12am-1-2pm depending whether it was primary or secondary (high) school.

And University? Well, you know, one does not simply have so much free time as while being at University. (Slovak ones)

Kids in here have normal school, I guess, and then do some random-whatever-after-school shit. Study or that kind of things, you proly know it. They parents are probably still at work, so need to be home-alone (judging by what I've seen while working for Korean company in Slovakia).

Not a single idea, what does those youngsters think about spending all time at school (even Saturdays in some cases!)...

But few ideas what older kids (18-30y) think about it - as I am in college (seems like something between University and secondary school, kinda more practically oriented, taking like 2 years of ones life).

They like it. They believe education is the most important for them. They wanna study and be successful. Once we asked one student: "What do you thing is the best thing you got from your parents?". And answer? "Study hard!".

I really can't understand that kind of thinking (one should not just accept whatever society puts into ones head, but do critical overview of general ideas and then decide whether wanna follow mass-population principles. I say it because they seems to me they ain't got idea why they say so), but I see sense in there: teach your kids to have no free time, and they wont know what to do in case they have some, so they will do whatever they been doing just a second ago, in this case some school stuff. You won't need to worry about good workers later, they will be used to the fact, they they never spend they time home, they parents don't spend time home, they don't need either, let's just work some more hours.

It's nicely closed circle. I see similar situation with elder people in Slovakia: they are used to always do something and they can't just do nothing (watch TV, read book, or some random philosophy-thinking-wasting-of-time). Kids will spend all time in school, when they grow up at work, when dead in cemetery. Eventually.

Good for economy, ha?

Will you try to abuse our Slovak shitty social welfare system, if you can't just stay home and do nothing? Nope, you will go and find job, make some business or do some volunteering.

Don't believe? Change the following charts to be able to see more years and believe.


Source: tradingeconomics.com

Source: tradingeconomics.com

They (Koreans) know what are they doing. And they do it well.

I am not gonna make analysis of how much are we (in Slovakia) investing into education and research and compare it to Korea, because everyone know how it would end up. The Korean education system is one of the best in the world.

But back to business: poor kids (and adults). From my point of view I can't imagine my kids having this way of studying. And in general, people in here are expected to be the best in everything. Sometimes they want them to be perfect too much, and some can't work it out. Korea leads the suicide rates worldwide.

Difficult topic, not so simple as I presented. but anyway, life is not that easy in Korea.

From my point of view, not for Koreans thought, they have never seen any other way of living (at least the most of them).

Man, we are all famous!

For a minute....

Okay, not minute, not 15 minutes, but 14 minutes for sure. Because we decided to use one more minute for future needs. And we gonna need it, right?

So, week ago (?), Saturday, I mean, we went for one event - making of 1km long GimBap - some kind Korean food I am not really eating. It's not bad food, but you know, I am picky with food (and with a lot of another stuff).

Why we went there? 

I saw some post on facebook, that they need some internationals for this event, to make that food with locals. So I thought I am gonna ask my friends whether they wanna join. YES, they said. I have to admit, I was not expecting yes answer, but why not, right? So we went.

There's a street in Daegu, with a loooot of restaurants. I guess this event is to promote the street. We ain't got a lot of troubles with finding the place, but we got some with finding the girl I talked before, kinda organizer for us  to be there (Kate).

So we got some fancy clothes and did the food. 

Then we ate it. Not bad actually.

Interesting part was media. All over place.. And all the Koreans making pictures of us. For all my life I never had that amount of pictures as I had that day. God. Hundreds of pictures when eating, making, whatever-ing gimbap. Zoo, that's the word one needs to use. I felt like in zoo. Animal showing his stuff. Our stuff was being different.

But I felt good, thought. It was funny and all.

And more pictures with mayor and local authorities.

You don't need a lot to make it to news in here, maybe.  We been on TV also, but I haven't seen it. And we won some ticket (not ticket, but i don't know the word),  200000 won to spend in restaurant.

We did yesterday.  God that food was good. Pics in my phone, lazy to take them out. They all might appear on facebook one day.

And writing too, so see ya, thanks for reading ;]

Rocking Daegu

It's not a secret, I love rock-metal-punk-whatever-guitar-music.The thing is, here in Korea, people kinda like something different:

Koreans:

Me: 

Little difference, but important one.

It's thing I can't really understand, but it seems that everyone in here loves K-pop. I tell you...

So i asked in some groups on Facebook, where the fuck are some metal clubs/pubs/whatever with live music? Answer: well, one is Club heavy and other Horus Music Garage. Both opened only for gigs. Noone knows any metal pub.

/Ahh, and you might wanna join this group to see what gigs are going on (In Daegu)./

I was like: Really? 2,446,418 people and not a single metal pub? 

People said really. But later I found something called Sugar Joe's (by accident, there might be even more of them!?), they sometimes have live shows. And nearby is Gypsy Rock. (Both near NKU.) You better fall in love with that lovely place.

Any Polish here? 

Nawet nie probujcie tu uchodzic! 

I am not sure if this is warning or recommendation. Anyway, the place is awesome: you can play the music you like for free, beer is good, and toilets, toilets are even better. One needs to go up small straight stairs to find out the space for pissoir is like for small kids.

I mean I can hardly fit and I am skinny. Fat kids have hard life. If it's your case, you better practice your aiming before going there. And man, don't forget that you gonna be drunk that time! And ladies gonna be right next to you ;]

Too bad I ain't got pictures, but you know... go check it out yourself!

So, have I seen some Korean rockers? 

Actually, first concert I have seen here was in Horus garage, and it was some Korean band the name I don't remember. And with Mr. Headbutt. I also been some music festival (rock festival), but it was fail, as they technicians fucked up. I mean mics stopped to work. Man..

In Slovakia, the park where concert was going on, would be so full of people (as it was for free and rock). In here, it felt like people in here (usually about 50, if not less) are only random walkers stopping by with WTF in their faces.


When I visit some concert (for example last Friday in Sugar Joe's) the most of people are not Koreans. I would say less than 20% of all people being there.

Strange. I never seen such a similarity in music taste in any country.

Anyone knows another good places? 

Unpacking, typhoon, hate.

I.  Unpacking

Yes, indeed, I am kinda unpacking after coming to my destination. The fact that I am doing it 3-4 weeks later might be omitted.

Anyway, we went on school trip the other and I was looking for some shorts in my baggage (I haven't done any unpacking so far) and by accident I found another jeans in there. Man, I don't need to go for shopping!

The idea is: probably I can find some another useful stuff in there also, right? I do not remember packing, but I might even took something interesting.

Wondering about results? Nothing. Man, only big amount of pills.

So much pills. Even more. For headache, another one for headache, and another one for headache. And for general body ache. For stomach ache. For allergy. Eyes vitamins, some general no-idea-what-for vitamins. Eye-drops. Pills for coughing.  Some magnesium for my hearth. And some shit I ain't got idea what it is.

I feel more healthy already. 

II. Typhoon

Typhoon is kinda dangerous (they say). But guess what? Not in Daegu.

Damn! I did come to the other side of world and I am not gonna see typhoon!? Alright, It'd been in here, but we are surrounded by mountains, so it looked like every-day-regular European rain. Little more stronger wind, but still boring. Storms I've seen in US been more exciting: shit-load of lightening (like every second) and I also haven't been working in such a times. Unfortunately, in this part of world, they somehow works on the same principles as my Faculty in Slovakia: when all others are closed, we still go to school.

But they got awesome thing connected with rain. This:

You don't need to take your umbrella cover, because you can take fresh one from that machine. Awesome. Never seen anywhere.

But I tell you, in here, it is everywhere: bank, police, school, shops, wherever. Business, right? They know what are they doing.

Čučana:

Have you ever seen such a thing? Comment if you have seen this umbrelattor before. 


III. Hate

I hate my Korean teacher.

Okay, it's not hate, she is nice and so... but, you know, she ain't speak English, and listening 2-3-4 hours to some Korean stuff I don't understand... Irritate me so fucking much. How can I learn language if I don't understand my teacher?

Fuck, she is teaching us basic stuff, but explaining in Korean. Damn, how can she explain me the basics of some language with use of the same advanced version of language? When she paint something on board, I can only smile. Makes no sense to me. Pointless.   

Sure, I ask her: Sorry, I don't understand what did you just wrote.

And she's like: "korean-korean-korean." Explaining me meaning of Korean sentence in the same Korean language I don't understand.

Lady, if I could understand the Korean, I wouldn't need to explain sentence. Man!  

Thanks god she is only one of 3 teacher we got.

Thanks god I am phlegmatic.