My Weekday Schedule in Korea

          Today I want to talk about what everyday was like when I was in Korea. During the weekdays, I had a set schedule that I did every single day. I realize how much I hated back then, yet I'm sitting here thinking how much fun it was. So here's my schedule.

           My day kind of went like this. Woke up at 9:30, got ready and took the bus at 10:20, transferred to another bus at 10:50, slept an hour in the bus, somehow woke up right when I go to my stop, and got to school by 12. When I got to school, these rascals outside started yelling out “ BEN TEACHER!!” and I casually waved, patted their head, or kicked them. Then I went straight to the principal's office, knocked twice, waited for the 5'1 male who kind of looks like my dad with serious authoritative look on his face to say “Yeesss??”, went in and bowed, and waited for his “Oh Mr. Ven, what ssuh?(you come in Korean) and I replied with modest smile and said, “Neh”, and then I exited the room. I then proceed to the teacher's lounge and I did the same for all the staffs including the vice principal.

           After all that, I went up to my class room, decorated by the least artistic person(me), called “English Town”. I was the sheriff in town. I went on the computer for 20mins, waited for my mentor teacher to call me and say “Ven~~ let's eat”, and I walked over to her classroom. We walked together to the cafeteria and all the kids would say we were dating, I'm cheating on Kim Yuna, tease us and my cool mentor teacher says “ SHOW RESPECT” and they shut up. HAHAHAH.

           When I would be standing in line, it's living hell yet it's cute. At least 40 kids touched me during the 30 mins that I sat and tried to eat. And then there's the annoying teachers asking me stupid questions like “how do you say 'gamja tang' in engrish?”. After I ate, I sneaked out to one of my secret spots to burn a cancer stick.

           Full on kids attack happens after lunch. There are the active kids who play outside, playing soccer or punch one another. But there are kids who are talkative and wants to bother me. First it's the attack of the kindergarteners, they follow me from the cafeteria to my class room, which is about 80 yards away. They hang on to me, punch my nuts, ddong jjip, laugh at me, all kind of evil actions. Then it's the attack of the 1^st and 2^nd, they are LOUD. 2^nd grade girls just come into my room, yell until their lungs go out, and they leave. Wtf..... After that, 3^rd and 4^th comes in, ask me to turn on Korean music but instead I put on raw hip hop, and they draw on my board. 4^th grade girls usually cleaned my room because I told them they'll play games if they do. And finally the bitchy 6^th grade girls and my homies the 6^th graders. If I think about it, I think I only changed the 6^th grade boys lives. Their home room teachers were pretty much geeks and losers. They couldn't control these kids and so they yelled at them everyday, which led to students completely ignoring authority. So their guy, the cool teacher who understands rebellion, but I taught them that's not cool. Man I miss them kids.

           I hardly ever prepared for any of the lesson plans, I probably took 10 mins to come up with an idea to kill 1 hour a day for these little bastards. I mean I understand the importance of learning English but I mean come on, they're not even 10 yet, they're not gonna remember this, they'll forget in a week at max. So I just played with them, let them be the kids that they're suppose to be.

           After all this, I waited 30mins for my mentor teachers to take me home. So I went to one of my favorite spots of the whole school, the root top, to burn another cancer stick. I think I had the best cigarette there. I thought about life, all that good stuff, while intoxicating myself with 40 different carcinogen and tar. Remainder of the time, I was on Facebook. I became addicted. I would go on that stupid website, everyday, clicking profile and profile, see who has new status, comment on people's walls saying stupid crap, and of course, stalking people left and right.

           At 5pm, I went out to the parking lot to go home. The car ride from the school to my house was special. There was 3 teacher's, kindergarten teacher, cafeteria teacher, and my mentor teacher, and a special little boy who is the kindergarten teacher's son. I usually slept, but the times that I didn't fall asleep, we would talk. We talked about all kinds of stuff. I can't recall any of those topics but it was usually an enjoyable conversations. I would also test my special little boy because he was a genius. I taught him one color and he would know the whole rainbow. Instead of playing video games, he researched about English, Chinese character, and train stations. I don't know what it was that fascinated him so much about train stations but every time he saw a train or train stations, he would trip out.

           Many times my mentor teachers took me to dinner. The best foods I had in Korea was with them. They took me to these OG spots where they grow up and it was dddddaaannnkkkk. I can clearly remember giving my cafeteria teacher a bruise because I was insisting that she pay so I was holding her wrist too hard. This nyeng myun place was so good, I think I went there at least 20 times. Then they dropped me off at a spot, took a 15 min bus ride to my house, then I sat there, had a smoke, and took a nap.

Around 8 pm, I started cooking my dinner that I had for 3 months. Grilled chicken breast, sweet potatoes, 2 eggs, and a banana. I only did this when I was alone. When Joe came over, every single week except couple weeks, we feasted. After I ate, I sat there, stirring into my television, checking things on Facebook. Around 9 pm, I went out with my bike and my basketball gear. I biked around the city for an hour and a half. I was lucky enough to be living in a city and literally 10 min walk away from the world cup stadium and also a huge park. During the summer it was pretty cool because I can see people just drinking at the park, having fun, letting the kids play. Anyways, after the bike ride, I went to the basketball courts. They were always filled with Korea league players, some where good, some decent. Some how I found a man who's from Sac town, who's been living in gwangju for 4 years, that I could actually be friends with. I remember having our last beers together, I told him I'll bring some seeds if I go.

           Then I came home, showered, eat a banana, have a smoke, and just did nothing until 1am til I fell a sleep. I was pretty lonely at home but eh, now that I look back, it was fun. I went out for midnight snacks to my neighbor's, gs25, got warm soy milk, yogurt for the morning, and banana milk.

           Yep, this was pretty much my life in Korea. I might have wanted to come back here to the states, but now that I think about it, it was a good experience. I gained lot of traits living in Korea which I will not be boasting about. I honestly want to go back. Actually let me rephrase that. I honestly want to go to any other country besides US and live there for 6 months. I think traveling is that much fun. I been stuck in this little puddle with these tiny fishes but I want to swim with the big bois! So all you readers, go to the ocean and swim with the sharks!

College Apps

Four years ago, I can still remember trying to apply to all these schools that I’ll be applying this year. I had standard grades which only permitted me to apply but didn’t make me standout as an outstanding student. My SAT scores were like a grandpa with a cane trying to play basketball with Lebron James, I got shitted on. I remember people asking each other which college they got into. “OHHH MY GAWD~ I got into UCLA!!!” or “yea.. I got into SD but I’m waiting on Berkeley.” Well someone asked me that question, and I just quietly whispered, “I think I'm just gonna go to community college.” Back then I felt like an idiot, failure, a pathetic loser. People were celebrating, meeting new people, talking about how cool their dorms are, how they have so much freedom to party, blah blah blah. I did get a bit jealous of their new life, new surroundings, and new environment as a university student but I still did my part as a college student as well. In fact, I have no regrets regarding the 3 years I have “wasted” to transfer to a university. In those 3 years, I believe it shaped me into a man that I am now. I'll break it down by each year of what I have learned and what I have experienced.

To describe 1^st year of college in one word, I would use the word “new”. Everything was new, the school, the students, the people, the environment, the professors, time schedule, and more. El Camino was something new. The classes were fairly easy but since it was a new method of learning, I worked hard the first year. I had mostly A's and couple B's, I had it handled. The jealousy of going to a university was my only inspiration, nothing more. I also joined the El Camino volleyball team. I was the only Asian on the team, the underdog, but as I trained harder and harder, I improved significantly. Outside of school, I visited other cities and universities. I went to UCLA a lot because Vivian always swiped us free food(thanks buddy, I know your reading this and I gotta say I have a fond memories of that year). I visited UCR regularly because all my friends who partied and got effed up were there. I did my fair share of drinking and smoking. This was my way of rebellion against my strict parents. I also got into a lot of trouble. My parents were already disappointed at the fact that I wasn’t going to a university just like the rest of their friend's kids. My rebellion grew this year, massively. So I started smoking, massively. I can't really remember much of what happened in 2007-2008 because well, I inhaled THC and was under the influence pretty much every chance I had. I also started working at an Asian advertising company called AAAZA. 30 bucks an hour sound good? Yep. That's how I was financed to do whatever I wanted this year. I also got a job at Warren High as a JV girl's volleyball team. I also got fired because of my myspace, well actually, it was because of a girl and her bitchy mom who wanted vengeance against me because I put her in freshmen team and told her she wasn't good enough for JV. I didn't care, I had a good experience being around these cute innocent girls, calling me Benny, teaching them how to grunt and hit the ball. I learned one thing, erase myspace.

When 2^nd year came around, I thought I had everything down. I really didn't give a damn about what I was doing, I just went with the flow. Most of my grades were now B's and couple A's. I ditched classes just because I knew how to cheat the system and to succeed with the least amount of work contributed. I found my only friend at El Camino! He was half white, half Japanese, gnarly bro, obsessed with girls, smoked heroin at the time, but his life wasn't revolved around heroin. One day he comes in to the classroom with a wrist brace, full on winter coat during middle of May, and his face looked pale, as if he saw the holocaust when it was happening. Being the good friend I am, I asked what happened and he told me he can no longer move his left arm. The story is, he smoked heroin, fell asleep on his arms, and now he couldn't use it. The doctors told him that it was called “honeymoon” syndrome. They call it this because when a male sticks his arm out for the girl to use as a pillow, it creates major case of dead arm, which stops the blood flow and disables the arm to function for couple weeks. Well my friend freaked out, went to the rehab, and now he's clean as ever and his arm is completely fine now. He also got me a job at the coffee bean. I also got fired from this job. The manager told me I was not suitable for customer service jobs. Ha! Well I'm laughing now because I'm probably making double the amount of whatever that dike is making now. I learned few things about life, not to do any other drugs besides weed for the rest of my life. I'm still doing good and I have no doubt that I will keep this promise until the day I die. I also broke my ankle playing basketball(I blame J Cottle). I couldn't walk for couple weeks, I was out from the volleyball team, and I couldn't get any exercises done. So that year, I went all the way up to 220lbs. Also, I was still smoking the ganjah which only helped the obesity by munching on 3 coke cans and a brownie each day. Let's just say on the physical looks, this year was the worst year I had. I also got a “warning DUI” which was pretty much a joke in regards to my record, but was a pretty serious deal to my parents. I wasn't arrested, no record, just a warning, but my parents thought I was going to jail, get my license suspended and pretty much thought my life was over. Another mistake I made, driving drunk with a drunk idiot friend who helped me get pulled over and of course my other drunken idiot friends who laughed out loud inside my car as I'm sitting on the curve, waiting to blow into the breathalyzer of doom. By the end of the year, I thought about my life a lot. I wanted something new, something better than what I had. I was tired of the same routine I was going through. I had stronger relationships with the people I wanted to be with, and weaker relationships with people I no longer considered as “friends”. This was pretty critical point of my life, I started seeing things differently, questioned everything but no answer for anything. Confusion.

Ahhhh my favorite year. My 3^rd year was probably the most fun I had. I only had 1 semester left of school. Little did I know, that sentence was going to come back and bite me in the ass. Let's just say I “thought” I only had one semester left. So I didn't try hard during school. I got an A, B, and 2 C's. Ouch. But I really didn’t care, only thing that was running in my mind was Korea. Yes, I asked the devil himself to come along, and he did. Around this time, my parents were starting to understand what I was doing with my life, as well as I understood what they wanted me to do with my life. Listen up, your parents don't care if you become a millionaire, the most important thing is that you become a decent human being, which is the reason why my parents are so strict, I think. They also know you're capable of doing greater things than what we do now, might be because of the regrets that they feel when they reminisce about their lives. Oh and trust me, this is never ending. I know I'm going to stress the hell out of my kids to be better than Kobe. Anyways, my parents were proud of me to be traveling and also building experiences for the future. I like to compare my whole “Korea” business to Korean young adults getting drafted to the army. Korean dads always talk about how they became a man after the army and I would like to say the same for my Korea experience. I have lost about 20lbs, I was in the best shape of my life, had fun, met crap load of people(both nice and douches), and I even had a girlfriend who called me 30 times one day because I wasn't picking up my phone. Through these experiences, I know for a fact that I feel like a new man. I have matured, encountered many different people from different part of the world, experienced many new things and many other reasons why I have matured. I have learned a lot. I won't get too much into Korea but it was good experience. My view on things were much more complex. It was no longer “eh, I don’t give a damn” but more on “how can I do better?”. The way of thinking was changed. As much as I hate boasting about myself, I built up confidence in Korea, realizing I am far greater than 90% of these douche bags who were accepted to this program. One of the things I remember that came out of my ex-girlfriend's mouth was “omg, you looked so hot compare to these guys”, pointing at the other TaLK scholars. I mean she might be crazy but even I thought it was pretty pathetic to see these guys trying to pick up girls...

Now, it's the end of 2010 and I am sitting here at the office, trying to convince you how my last 3 years were not a “waste of time”. Because really, I don't think for a second that I wasted my last 3 years. If anything, I would like to say I learned much more in the past 3 years doing whatever I was doing than if I were to be at a university for 5 years. I was young and I still am, and I don't see the point of suffering in classes of 300 students, trying to listen to one professor who's trying to explain something that is going to be completely useless after couple weeks. Universities will always be there, but youth will fade away. I have no regrets regarding my behavior during the last 3 years of my life and I wish to be saying the same thing 3 years later from now.

From a full grown man with a heart of a kid,

toodles.

My mother's birthday

Tomorrow is my mom's 53^rd birthday and I am going to tell you what happened 10 years ago on her 43^rd birthday.

About 10 years ago, my family and I immigrated to San Diego from small village in Korea. We settled under my aunt's place for couple months until my mom found a job in K-town in L.A as an editor for Korean newspaper. At first, my mom and I moved to Downey on Florence Ave and Old River School Rd by ourselves, leaving my dad and my brother in San Diego. I had no friends, nothing to do, and of course, could not speak a word of English other than “Hello, my name is Ben”, “How are you? Fine thank you and you?”, numbers 1- 20, and the alphabet but saying Z as in “jet tuh”. So I gotta say, I had an extreme case of culture shock. Since I had so much free time, I decided to explore and get an idea of what is around my house. I got on my bike and starting cruising east bound on Florence ave. I found couple things that we see still on Florence ave. There was the Mexican market(Amapola), Cosmic Bowling ( had no idea back then), Tacos Mexico (it used to be 25cents per tacos), and Sav-ons. I can't recall if I bought anything, but I did get an idea of my surroundings. Of course I felt like a complete stranger at home as well as just in city of Downey. I never knew anything about Mexicans, didn’t know what Spanish was, or seen so many damn cars. Well I should have realized back then that I was going to call this place home in the future.

On Nov. 16^th, 2000, my mom's 43^rd birthday, I decided to make this a very special occasion. I remember I wanted to give her the best birthday ever because well, there were couple reasons. First, our family recently moved to a new country, even though it was mainly I who was crying every single day because I was frustrated at the fact that I could not communicate with other kids at school. But I was sure at the time that everyone in our family was struggling to adjust to this new life. Secondly, my dad and my brother were in San Diego and could not be there to do anything for her birthday. So it was pretty much my responsibility to do something special for her. Picture this, 12 year old Korean kid, who is from a small tiny village in Korea, who can't speak/read/write English, all alone at home, 10 bucks in his possession, trying to throw a special birthday party for his mother. I have to admit, this kid had a pure heart, I mean just the thought of it was heart warming, wouldn't you agree?

So now we move on to the planning. I had limited resources that I could use so I did my best to use it wisely. The set up was simple, put the kitchen table in the middle of the living room. For entrees, I had Mi Yuk Gook (Korean birthday soup), Job Chae(Korean noodles), Korean pancakes (Boo Chin Gae) that my mom had cook the night before and the start of what we now call the “Cheese Egg” where I put crap load of cheese on top of the eggs. Now, it would not be a birthday unless there's a birthday cake and a present. So I casually went to Amapola, not knowing a word in English or Spanish, just to look for any bakery goods I can use to represent as a birthday cake. With the 10 dollars I had, I was only able to purchase 1 slice of cake. After purchasing that, I was left with 6 dollars to buy my mom a present. I headed towards Sav-ons, only to find myself eating 2 tacos that I have ordered from Tacos Mexico. Right now I'm trying to think how the hell I ordered 2 tacos, I probably just pointed at the sign, saying I want 2 of those. Back to my route to Sav-ons, when I got there I was able to find a birthday card for 3 dollars and 2 candles for dollar each. So I came home, made the entrees, wrote something pretty sweet on the card, and called to confirmed that my mom was 5 minutes away. So I lit the candles that I bought, held the slice of cake, and as she opened the door, I sang her a happy birthday song to her. She was shocked, she smiled, and after she blew out the candles, she started crying.

This has been the most memorable birthday I gave to my mom. The thing is, this is nothing compare to the things that she did for me. For all my brother's birthdays, I got a present also. I never understood why she bought me a present also but I always got it something for my brother's birthday. She threw me a birthday party every year until I was 13. And now she gives me cash for every birthday, and I gotta say that's the best present gift ever. This year, I'm planning on getting her the shoes that I wanted for the past month but I'm going to give her the priority of rocking them first because she truly deserves it. It's her birthday tomorrow and I just wanted to bring up the past for a quick second. 

Toodles.

Viviano and Lorabora: if you read this, don’t you dare to think for a second that I'm still this good kid because I'm a bad boy now. nah ppun nam jahs will soon rise again.

Peppero day.

Since it's peppero day today, i started thinking about my first crush i ever had. it all started in kindergarten when i used to look super cute, do stupid stuff, and some how have pretty kindergarten teachers give me kisses. Anyways, her name was Park Ji Yun; she was cute, smart, funny, and her dad was rich (owned a huge cow farm). Everybody in town knew already, we were the little 2 love birds everyone was talking about.

Around 5th grade, it started getting pretty serious. We started writing letters to each other, she invited me all flirty to her birthday party how she wont have fun if i wasn't there and what not, and i gave her a necklace for her birthday present.

I remember our first date, which was pretty adventurous now that i think about it. It was her, her best friend, and me, i was pimping since 5th grade... I'm proud of my self. Anyways, we took 15 minutes bus ride, switched to another bus, ride 20 minutes and we were there. First we went to the sticker picture place. When i was taking picture with her friend, i would just look stupid as hell, making funny faces and looking all angry. But when i was taking pictures with her, i try to look all cute, getting all close to her, man Papi had moves. After the pictures, we went roller skating. It was underground and dark and big kids were there but i didn't really care, all 3 of us just held hands and roller-skated round and round. When we got tired from rollerskating, we went to the street stands and had a feast with tempura, dduk bo kki, and kim bob. It was probably the most ideal first date you can have don't you think? 2 girls, sticker pictures, roller skates, and junk food on the streets of Korea.

When peppero day came, I received 4 peppero boxes, each from different girls. hehehheehhehe pimpin was easy. Anyways, I got Ji Yun those fancy pepperos with nuts on it and shit, and not just one, but 2 premium peppero boxes. I remember this day so vividly because i wrote a letter again too but these older kids took it and started reading it. I punched the kid who read it and i had to write a full page on why I was writing that full page paper...

During 6th grade, I had sudden boost of cooties disease. It was "boys rule and girls suck" kind of thing and I simple stopped writing to her or talking to her as often as I used to. I don't no why, but i remember fighting with her and for some odd reason, i threw a mechanical pencil at her head, which got stuck on her head ... ouch. Anyways, when i found out i was leaving Korea, the bad ass that i was, gave her the whole zip lock bag full of love letters i got from her and told her to forget about me HAHAHAHAH

In 2007, 7 years after seeing her, i met her again in Korea. i was SHOCKED. my first crush looked terrible. she was short (4'10 ish), glasses, fat face, nasty hair, and talked like a geek. yea, didn't really think about her from that point on.. hahahhaha yea I'm a heartless bastard.
Well i don't no how peppero day ended up reminiscing  about my first crush but ehh hope u find this entertaining. lion square.

sold my soul to the devil.

This is my first blog.
The reason why I made this blog is because i want to record whatever I'm doing or thinking at the time in words. That's what i would say if i was being dishonest with you. The real reason why i made this blog is because by making this blog, it would get me to start doing things that actually benefit me in the future. There are couple things i want to do. First thing on the list is to read the bible, genesis to revelation, the complete package. The reason why i want to read the bible is simple, knowledge. Most of you are having a horrible time understanding what i'm writing, i understand, because im having difficult timing writing this simple blog.
Now, if my grammar is this terrible, why not read a book that helps my grammar instead of the bible? why the bible out of these million other books? well first of all, it is called a good book. secondly, i hate reading, i cant think of any other books beside Mein Kampf and the bible to read to even remotely keep me interested in. I'm pretty sure im not ready to kill 6 million jews for no good reason when i am a jew lover myself. dear baby jesus, they are God chosen people for SURE. anyways, back to my bible reading plans, i just feel like everyone should read the bible atleast once, not because they're christian, but just purely because it is THE good book. There's many stories, theories, philosophical crap to relate to our current lives which i think will eventually benefit us at one point. And people talk about the bible all the time, jesus did this, moses did that, david killed a giant, samson killed like 2 million with a cow bone or something, all that juicy stuff. there's this one other reason why im going to start reading the bible but i wont get into that right now, it's gonna take couple days to write about that... soo yea. Here's to my first blog post and let's see how this thing goes. XXooOOxx