Yesterday morning was unseasonably warm as I was  riding my electric bike my way to the bus. It was raining and my pants were getting wet and I should have walked to the stop. But that requires not rushing out of the house at the last minute. 

Leaving the house anytime that isn't the very last moment is getting harder to do as February approaches. Starting the first of March my friend's Hagwon opens and I become, of all crazy things, and ESL teacher. Classes will be held inside a storage container on the farm near the horses.  Happy kids and happy horses. That's really all I wanted my entire life.  And while I can't be a partner in the full sense... the visa requires a $300,000 dollar investment... I can be an ESL teacher. Not saying I wouldn't refuse anyone who wants to donate that to me any more than I'd refuse a beer. Well, these days its scones, but that's a story for another. Okay, okay. There is a new bakery in Yeongju that makes killer scones and you get 2 for 3,000 won ($3.00 usd) which a really great deal if  you consider a slice so-so desert is the equivalent of five or six bucks at the coffee shops. And the only place you can get even a so-so baked desert in Yeongju is a coffee shop. Or was.

Now, Yeongju has the scone standard. It is like the gold standard only it uses scones to determine the value of something. For example, is a that car worth the price of 1,000 scones? No. Then it's not a good deal. Which is kind of not really while I'm still riding and pushing my electric bike up the mountain to feed the horses  every night.

Well, until yesterday, when the weather was warm and rainy and my bike which had been action funny, stopped played dead. No amount of tickling made it act funny again. Thus, after work, I had to walk 30 minutes to the farm. More on that later.

Nothing much of interest happened at work. I'm writing a book. Literally. It's for our winter camp, and I only had one class to teach yesterday so I spent six hours out of nine hours making ppts and writing the winter camp text book, forty minutes teaching, twenty minutes drinking coffee, one hour for lunch and forty minutes playing with a 3D pen. I made a pair of glasses and a Christmas tree.  I had fun but I'm not sure how to make it into an English lesson.

Thirty minutes after everyone's finale class it was five-thirty--- go figure. 

And because it's Yeongju English center, Mrs. K scolded us for creeping toward the door thirty-seconds early. I'm being only slightly factious. And yes. It does require  a modifier modifying a modifier to express the situation. (Only modifies slightly, which modifies factitious which itself is a degree of humor.)

Now that I've given you a grammar headache, I waited 30 minutes for the bus, went home, discovered I could not tickle the bike to life, rode/pushed it home, took the battery in to charge, discovered my cat had eaten crackers and vomited, put the battery on the charger just in case, cleaned up after the cat, made dinner, ate dinner and changed clothes to go to the farm.

By changing clothes I put on my Carhartt overalls. How did I never know about them before? Layered and insulated I started waddling up to the farm.  As I climbed the first hill, mildly steep compared to the next two, I began cursing all those scones. Because the problem with the scone standard is that you get the most value for your money by purchasing scones. And scones go to your thigh and hips.

"This is your fault," I said to myself. "You keep saying you're going to loose weight and NOT buy any more scones."

Yes it's my fault, but what can I do? When I try to share the scones withe horses they only lick the sugar off the top and drop the rest on the ground. Clearly, they don't understand the scone standard. 

Hay is  1,400 won per kilo and rising. Beyond sticker shock, we had a problem with our August hay. It was infested with the three big bad weeds: Foxtail, Sandbur and Tickle-grass. The first pallet was good, but halfway through the second pallet, the horses started drooling. At first I thought it might be clover related, except we haven't been grazing them.

But my friend kept bugging me about it, so I grabbed Thunder's tongue and had a peek in her mouth. She had tones of blisters and seeds. Thor was the same. And the two of them actually appreciated us pulling the seeds out. Super, on the other hand, was having none of it.

The last time I'd read about Foxtail, was in a 4-h book twenty years ago. Even taking that into consideration, it was not until this year that I encountered it in person. So I consulted google and learned that it looks a lot like Timothy and sometimes not so honest companies pass off Foxtail as timothy. We ended up burning quite a few bales ( $.90 cents per kilo =(

Hopefully this new batch  stays surprise free. 

Public transportation is excellent in South Korea, and even with a splurge on a taxi now and again, much cheaper than owning a car. Nevertheless, winter is coming and not in the Game of Thrones way. It's October. Next month is November and after that comes December.

Thank you captain obvious. What isn't so obvious is that I've been riding an e-bike since about April when I reached my limit for walking to the farm. The electric bike has been awesome except on cold days and raining days. Then it kind of is a miserable experience. A rain suit will help but it's time to drive. Thus, on Saturday I went to the driver's license center in Gangnam.


Information on getting a driver's license was both easy to find and unclear. For one thing, Google searches didn't turn up  explicit instructions. I like those. It's hard to get it wrong. For example, can you take any part of the test on Saturday? The answer is yes, but you should have someone who speaks Korean to call and find out the dates.

At the location in Gangnam they had English, Chinese and a few others. Over the phone my friend was told and then told me that you have to take the test and then watch a video. This turned out to be an important misunderstanding. Two test times, meant I had to be there by 8 am. Coming from Punggi that meant going to Seoul the night before and staying in a hotel or catching the 3:30 train.  I was supposed to go last month, but lack of sleep meant it was pointless. I could barely put on a shirt correctly at the time. This month, however I was good to go in that, though the night before I left the farm at ten pm and had to get up at 2 am,  I had actually slept that week.  

But alas, my bike decided to NOT cooperate by having a flat tire. With time too short to walk to the train station, I went back to bed until five. I got up again, trudged to the bus station and tried to get a seat to Seoul. Even the 6:15 am bus was booked, but thankfully the desk clerk checked the next too buses in case a seat was sold but the person didn't get on. I was in luck. The 7 am bus to Gangnam had such a seat. It was double lucky because I needed to be in Gangnam, not Dongseoul which is where the other bus terminal is.

My best friend was a bit uhg when she found out because we had discussed all the reasons going late was pointless. But I told her I have to try to get at least something done.

As it turned out,  now that the test is on a computer there is a line... a line not unlike lines for things like riding a roller coaster or getting a hotdog at a busy hotdogery. The difference being that the line is for a computer. When a computer opens ups up the staff tell you to go sit down. You type in your number and your name appears and you take the test (7,500 won).

Before you can do that part you have to have a health check (6,000 won) and a traffic safety video (0 won). The video is  styled after a Korean drama and isn't nearly as bad as the ones I remember from driver's ed in high school. 

However, before I could watch the video I had to get in the right line on the 4th floor. First, I lined up in front of the classroom because I'm a genius an didn't read the 13 the lady had written on my paper. Then, I lined up at counter 13 and waited. And waited. When I got to the front, I was told that counter 13 was for internet reservations and go to counter 12. So I got into the back of that line and began sweating. By this time, there was a chance that maybe the room would be too full. Or not. Because, as it turned out the room sits more than a hundred people and I was number 66 and only a few more seats were into the 70's. We then watched the hour long movie for 35 minutes before it was time for the clerk to begin processing us out of the room.

From there I went to another line and then finally the line for the computers. On my next trip to Seoul in November I get to prove I can work windshield wipers and stuff.  It would have just exchange my license before it expired but hindsight is 20/20.

Lauren woke up with a playing card stuck to her cheek. She peeled it off. Instead of a Jack of Hearts or a Queen of Spades staring back at her, it was an emoji.

Beyond the basic smiley, winky, and frowny, she had trouble figuring out what emotions the little yellow faces were trying to express. For instance, the one Twitter described as "weary" looked like it was having a straight up meltdown to her.

This one appeared nervous.

Propped up on the nightstand was another card, with the image of a paintbrush on it.

She texted a picture of the cards to Jason, with a question mark.

He responded with a skull and crossbones icon, wearing a safari hat. She recognized it as the logo of the mini golf course -- Jungle Joe's - which was across the street from one of those studios where you paint your own pottery.

She sent Jason the gif he called the confused frog, but got no response, so she dressed and headed towards Ocean Drive.

"Lauren?" the girl behind the counter asked, as she entered the pottery place.

Lauren nodded. The girl handed her two more cards. On one was the image of a silhouette of a man's head with his brain outlined inside. The other was an apple.

Thinking for a minute, Lauren wondered, "School?"

She drove to the high school. The parking lot was empty, except one car. Beneath the wiper blades were three more cards. One had a bullseye on it and the other a beer. This clue was easy. Whenever they disagreed, she and Jason headed down to the pub to settle things with a game of darts. The winner was declared right. The third card was of a character that looked like the baby of a purple people eater and a traffic cone.

At the pub, the bartender -- wearing a t-shirt with the purple people eater traffic cone creature on it - gave her another card, featuring an icon reminiscent of the ghosts from Pacman.

At the arcade down the street, she found another card with the logo of Jungle Jim's resting on the Pacman machine.

She sent Jason the confused frog gif again.

Her phone dinged with his reply: A picture of a man's hand, holding a stopwatch, followed by a picture of a running frog. They said HURRY, without using the word.

Lauren texted back the picture that looked like three arrows making up a rainbow circle. She hoped Jason got the meaning: Why are you making me go 'round and 'round?

He answered with a pointing emoji that Lauren interpreted to mean, "GO. NOW."

When Lauren got back to Jungle Jim's, Jason waited out front. He handed her three more cards.
One had the diamond ring emoji printed on it.

She tore up the card that had NO written on it. She handed back the one that said YES. And they both smiled, like the happiest of all the happy emojis.

“Yikes! Your Instagram account has been hacked.”

Susan ran into the bedroom, she had a paintbrush stuck in her ponytail so I knew she had woken up early to work on her upcoming exhibition.

“Is it pirates?” she grabbed my phone and scrolled through her feed. “All my paintings have been replaced with an eggplant emoji. What does that even mean?”

“We don’t have much time,” I leaped out of bed, naked as Adam before the fall. I considered explaining the eggplant emoji with the props I had available but didn’t think Susan would appreciate it.

“My mind is blank, should we call Apple?” she asked.

I explained that that would be pointless and tried to think of what would make Susan’s Instagram account a target.

“I know who it was,” I said. “Last night at the dinner party, you were drinking beer and talking to that angry fellow in purple wizard’s hat.”

“Yeah…” she said.

“That is the leader of Frogs Running With Briefcases, a vigilante group of hackers and pirates who leak government secrets.” I was pretty proud of myself until I realised that I had plenty of my own secrets and ghosts­—the doomsday launch codes.

“Fucking pirates!” I screamed.

“Don’t swear, General,” said Susan. “Why would you invite the frog… briefcase… leader… whatever, to a United Nations dinner party anyway?”

I opened my laptop trying to remember my password.

“Don’t point your finger at me, Susan. I wasn’t one who was drunk and passing my phone around to show off my number of Instagram followers.”

My laptop hummed into being and the screen turned white apart from a small, animated icon. Susan and I stared at the spinning rainbow of arrows. It was beautiful. I squeezed Susan’s hand and knew this was the end of the world.

“Do you want to go with me to Japan?” Liz asked.  

Hell yes! I thought. Instead, I said, “For how long?”

In the spectrum of her question, my question and her thinking about the answer, my internal peanut counter was shouting, “You can’t afford it!” and my adult responsibilities head voice said “No, no, no. You have to get your driver’s license and there is so much work to do on the farm. And you haven’t wrapped up that contest yet. The last voice, and perhaps the most powerful said, “You have spent more than a decade in South Korea which is literally a hop away.

I said yes and then I changed my mind and said no. I’ve not been fiscally responsible… ever really, but this has become truer since the horses arrived. Since I was waffling like usual, my friend just bought my ticket. About the time I found that out, I also learned that my friend’s friend was coming with her seven-year-old son. Gabe is six. The two days in Japan reaffirmed my decision to not have children of my own. I don’t think poorly of anyone who has kids. Inf act, I’d probably adore your kids if I met them. But I love being able to go home at night without them. I suspect a lot of this has to do with my insomnia.

Anyway, though the resort my friend’s husband runs was nice really nice, the trip was meh and my friend and I found ourselves disagreeing on the car ride home. It wasn’t a fight, more or less a difference of opinions about how did what when. The kind of things you grump about with people you’re really close to. And that is the note I left it at as she dropped me off an went home. A few minutes later, I got a call.

“The storage was set on fire while we were gone.”

And that is why I haven’t done all the things I should have done with the contest. I had planned wrap things up on my vacation, but, well @#$^^^&*!!!!!!

Kathy is an artist/graphic designer/writer/creative person with too many ideas and too little time. She says she can be long-winded who could have turn this contest into a 7000 word story . However, she asked me not to challenge her to do that =). She loves music, reading, and her three dogs. Her family is pretty cool, too, especially her 12 year old niece, who is turning out to be an artist/graphic designer/writer/creative person, too, for which she will take all the credit.

There are several runners up and I will be contacting you each of you. I want to thank everyone again. There were so many good stories to choose from  and I had a really rough time deciding on a winner.

Below is Kathy's Story, Follow The Yellow Face Road.  It will be re-posted in a blog entry of it's own, along with the runner's up as soon as I get confirmation from those writers.

Lauren woke up with a playing card stuck to her cheek. She peeled it off. Instead of a Jack of Hearts or a Queen of Spades staring back at her, it was an emoji.

Beyond the basic smiley, winky, and frowny, she had trouble figuring out what emotions the little yellow faces were trying to express. For instance, the one Twitter described as "weary" looked like it was having a straight up meltdown to her.

This one appeared nervous.

Propped up on the nightstand was another card, with the image of a paintbrush on it.

She texted a picture of the cards to Jason, with a question mark.

He responded with a skull and crossbones icon, wearing a safari hat. She recognized it as the logo of the mini golf course -- Jungle Joe's - which was across the street from one of those studios where you paint your own pottery.

She sent Jason the gif he called the confused frog, but got no response, so she dressed and headed towards Ocean Drive.

"Lauren?" the girl behind the counter asked, as she entered the pottery place.

Lauren nodded. The girl handed her two more cards. On one was the image of a silhouette of a man's head with his brain outlined inside. The other was an apple.

Thinking for a minute, Lauren wondered, "School?"

She drove to the high school. The parking lot was empty, except one car. Beneath the wiper blades were three more cards. One had a bullseye on it and the other a beer. This clue was easy. Whenever they disagreed, she and Jason headed down to the pub to settle things with a game of darts. The winner was declared right. The third card was of a character that looked like the baby of a purple people eater and a traffic cone.

At the pub, the bartender -- wearing a t-shirt with the purple people eater traffic cone creature on it - gave her another card, featuring an icon reminiscent of the ghosts from Pacman.

At the arcade down the street, she found another card with the logo of Jungle Jim's resting on the Pacman machine.

She sent Jason the confused frog gif again.

Her phone dinged with his reply: A picture of a man's hand, holding a stopwatch, followed by a picture of a running frog. They said HURRY, without using the word.

Lauren texted back the picture that looked like three arrows making up a rainbow circle. She hoped Jason got the meaning: Why are you making me go 'round and 'round?

He answered with a pointing emoji that Lauren interpreted to mean, "GO. NOW."

When Lauren got back to Jungle Jim's, Jason waited out front. He handed her three more cards.
One had the diamond ring emoji printed on it.

She tore up the card that had NO written on it. She handed back the one that said YES. And they both smiled, like the happiest of all the happy emojis.

It's August first in South Korea. There is roughly an 11 hour difference between then and now in the United States so sometime tomorrow the contest will offically close.

The Let's Talk Emoticon writing challenge has just six days left. Please read about it here and remember to enter by August 1st!

First let me state that the school I work for is weird. I can't really say the name of the school because, well, teaching here is some kind of top secret mission. 

It was weird when I worked here before, and my hopes for things being better when I came back are... well, things are better. But the systemic issues that make me want to beat my head against a wall until I pass out are the same.

"Breath," I say to myself. "You have six months to go." And then a voice in my head weeps.

So, last week, T and I were working together on a PowerPoint for summer camp, a PPT she needed to present that day. She was asking for my help because I'm excellent not only at animating PPTs but also, knowing how to make complex ideas palatable for all levels of ESL learners whom may or may not know much English, but must teach or appear to teach for 40 minutes while avoiding any injury.

This is harder than you might think since half the time "sit down" is not understood or much else. Nevertheless, it's the path I've chosen.   So T and I were hard at work when my boss of sorts wandered over. Either R. or D. sent her a message that they couldn't work. By work R. means watching birds and D. means, well I don't sit next to him, but he keeps saying this job is so easy and he has too much free time so I'm positive work does not mean the same thing it does to me or you.

Anyway, boss told us to stop working. I thought that she misunderstood because T and I have been guilty of having a warm up the day conversation with the neighboring teacher. When it happens its from 8:30 to 9:00 and then classes start at 9:20. Because D. and R. are such awesome coworkers and completely self-unaware, they complain about any noise they don't make. I can't remember if I wrote about the keyboard or not, but to illustrate this point, let me tell you about it...

One day I was typing madly-- mostly I do PPTs here so I don't usually have much cause to type madly. But this day required about 1000 words in a row.  R. is always typing on chat rooms  because, well, like many ESL teachers, he's not here to teach. He's here for an easy paycheck. 

And in the public schools you can choose to work a little or a lot. This particular English Center located in yeongju-- if you can't figure it out, them I'm very good at keeping my place of employment top secret. So, in the schools attempt to cut down on free time, there is a lot of pointless paperwork that comes with this position. And during one of these paper work times, R. eaned over and said, "Can't you type more quietly?" He then gave me a rubber keyboard cover.

Add then went back to slamming on his uncovered keyboard. I politely told him he can't ask me to do be quieter than himself when typing, and I bet you can guess how bunched up his panties got.

So anyway, the two least industrious teachers demand silence and because sometimes life is 100% nonsensical, my boss asked my coworker and I stop talking.

"We  really are working today," I said.
"I know," she said. "But you've been at it for forty minutes."