Return of the Newsletters

As much as we’d like to think this site will make random people on the Internet interested in our lives, the more likely scenario is this: Only our best friends will read it, first from a sense of obligation, then guilt, then finally stopping altogether.

Thus in an effort of self-promotion, we present all current and former Chargers with a gift: the Newsletter Archives, accounts of Hillsdale College distance runners’ summer training in Colorado. Here they are, in all their inside-joke-driven and poorly proofread glory.

Year 1: Pueblo, Year 2: Boulder I, II, III, Unreleased, Year 3: Estes Park

(Perhaps MN can get us an electronic copy of Year 4)

 UPDATE: Year 4: (I) (II) 

Teachers Say The Darn’dest Things

As a teacher, you’re always looking for small, seemingly trivial ways to connect with your students outside of the actual lesson material. I feel this extracurricular bond is important in all classes, and especially so when your text is both incredibly boring and down right incomprehensible. (Yes, Ms. Lucile, I’m talking about Reading 2.2.)

So perhaps some would scold a student who walked in with headphones on, but not I.

I like your MP3 player.

It’s not an MP3 player.

Oh, I think, it must be designed for newer formats, mp4, wma, aac—stuff like that. The thing does look high tech. We’re not talking (the new) Ipod Shuffle-size here, but it is pretty small. There’s a cuteness factor too. White, a little boxy, with no visible USB ports outside—sort of like my dad’s old Volvo.

Seeing my continued interest, the girl lets me take a listen. Now, with the headphones on, I realize it’s not so much music coming from the device, but rather amplified sound. That’s when it hits me.

This is a hearing aid.

I quickly apologized, and even blushed a little too. The nice part is that none of that was necessary. The little girl was completely oblivious to my blunder, merely happy to have the teacher taking some interest in her.

My friend is a music teacher in Colorado Springs. He teaches some mentally and physically handicapped students, one of whom is in a wheel chair. Upon hearing about my MP3 misspeak, he quickly thought up an equivalent compliment of his own.

Hey, Timmy. Nice wheels.

One Crazy Korean Night: A Saga in 4 Parts (IV)

Here’s the thing. Being new in country, it’s tough to distinguish between a regular Broken English Dude and an actual Crazy Korean Dude.

That’s no knock on South Korea. The fact that we got into his tent to begin with is a testament to the people here. Given the same invitation in the States, there’s no way we would take that offer. Nor should you.

Our school director probably summed it up best:

In Korea many good people. Some bad.

I had an inkling this was one of the bad ones when the CKD began patting the top of my head. I figured I’d give him the benefit of the doubt—sleeping walking, perhaps—and shrugged it off. After he took a pass at CM, then tried to force me out of the tent saying, No three, no three! Only two, only two! it was pretty clear where things stood. That pile of pigs feet in my shoe was less about hospitality, and more about wining-and-dining.

Jersey came over afterwards, having heard the commotion from our exit. He felt pretty bad. After all, he had talked us into the whole arrangement. He tried to encourage us, though, with these words…

Look, Korea’s not like that. I’ve (edit)-ed three (edit)-s this month and I’m no super-star. The guy’s probably not even gay, I mean not for real. He’s just the crazy uncle that everyone hopes will get married, but he can’t, so it’s like he’s in prison. There are all these (edit)-ies around, but he can’t get ‘em, so it’s like he’s in prison, in prison looking for any piece of…umm… Look, you guys can sleep in my tent. No, seriously, it’s no big deal. Really. Besides, you don’t want to be out here anymore, do you?

The last point, at least, was a good one. It turns out that while we were with the CKD, Jersey had encountered a similar situation. The group of campers he was with suddenly split off when one dude decided to break out his keyboard. You could still hear the music; it sounded strange. Apparently the keyboardist had been giving off some weird vibes as well.

As the three of us crawled into an even smaller tent, Jersey had more wisdom for us…

Remember, life isn’t about George W’s conservative, Middle-East agenda. It’s about the sun, the moon, and the stars. I know it sounds stupid now, but the sooner you realize that the better.

And don’t steal my stuff, or I’ll kill you.

With that, we settled down for the third time in one evening, as the crazy keyboard kept playing, long, long into the night.

One Crazy Korean Night: A Saga in 4 Parts (III)

Meanwhile, the CKD is still drinking. We probably wouldn’t have noticed except for his unique method of opening bottles, which involved flipping an unopened bottle upside-down in an attempt to pry the lid off another bottle. The obvious problem with this is if (and when) the upside-down bottle itself becomes opened, instead of acting as the intended bottle-opener.

If that’s confusing, try drawing a series of diagrams. Should you end up with a huge spill by the end, you’ll know you got it right.

Despite the CKD’s best efforts, Jersey still held our rapt attention. Sure, it was probably nothing you couldn’t get from the History Channel, but fireside this Garden-Stater seemed like an itinerant guru. He ranged over Asian subject matters with effortless aplomb, from the origins of Hangul script to the niceties of Vietnamese culture.

Then the CKD blurted out these words:

Ad;kdfjj;af, a;dflkjafa, a;dlfkajfa not gay.

Not gay? Did he say ‘not gay?’

Adf;alkfj, af;lkajf, Korean men not gay.

Umm, of course, why would they be?

No, no, no! Korean men not gay! Not gay!

After an extended bout of gesticulation, pointing to his camp, ours, his, and ours again, we finally put it together.

Ah, you’re inviting us to sleep with you in your tent. And it’s cool, because Korean men aren’t gay.

Ah, yes, yes…

No thanks.

No, no, Korean men not gay!

We’d been over that. And we went over it a few more times, until Jersey decided to weigh in on the subject.

Actually, what he’s saying makes a lot of sense.

It does?

Well, yeah. You guys don’t have a tent. He has a big one with room for all three of you. It’s like if he were inviting you into his home, but you said you wanted to sleep on the street instead. Seriously, it would be rude to refuse.

How rude?

Pretty rude.

So there we are, three guys in this three-guy tent. And really, it isn’t so bad. There’s enough room, protection from the bugs, and a soft ground cover to boot. The CKD, however, decides this is not good enough, takes off in his Jeep, and comes back with pigs feet and Soju, the national drink of Korea.

You gotta give him credit for the effort. But at this point we were more worried about sleep than experimenting with vacuum packed meat, which may or may not have been cooked. The few pretend bites we took made their way into my right shoe, but eventually the CKD was doing all the snacking. You could tell it was a delicacy from the way he handled it, and I for one felt a little sorry for wasting it.

With the pigs feet polished off, it was finally time for bed. As far as I can tell CM checked out first, then the CKD. I was tired too; it had been a full and educational day. Mountain climbing, bathhouse visiting, fire starting, and now a tent with the CKD. But before our night’s end there was one more discovery yet to be made.

Yes. The dude was actually gay.

To be continued…

One Crazy Korean Night: A Saga in 4 Parts (II)

The now smoldering ashes explained the sounds we’d heard before.  Crazy Korean Dude produced a small blowtorch and attempted to revive the fire through intermitent bouts on full blast.  As you can probably imagine, a blowtorch is much better at charbroiling wood than lighting it, but due to the twin barriers of language and blood-alcohol level we were unable to convey that information to our new friend.

Then we hear (in perfect English)…

Dude, that is so illegal. Guys, do not let him do that.

The person speaking is a 29-year-old man we’ve come to refer to as ‘Jersey,’ in honor of his native state. At this point, he drops into the best Korean we’ve ever heard from a white man, and convinces the CKD to hold off on his flame-throwing exhibition, at least for the moment.

Jersey, to say the least, is a unique individual. But before you applaud his language skills, know that his main communicative goal is to meet and sleep with Korean women. In spite of that—or, perhaps more accurately, because of that—he’s quite good with the language and the people.

So good, in fact, that he hitchhiked over 100 miles to Seorok. Hitchiking in Korea happens to be illegal, but he never had to wait more than 2 minutes for a ride, and even the police got in on the action.

Knowing a little Korean goes a long way.

A few minutes after the police pulled him off the highway (being on the highway without a car is very illegal) a senior officer had him on the phone with an English-speaking dispatcher.

The conversation went something like this:

Police Dispatch Lady: They want to help you, Jersey. They want you to tell me what you want, so they can help you. Just tell me what you want, and they can help you.

Jersey: Well, I don’t want to say what I really want, but um, if I could just get to Seoroksan somehow, but no, I really can’t ask for…

Police Dispatch Lady: Put the officer back on.

Moments later…

Senior Officer: We’re taking you.

Junior Officer: Shouldn’t he take the bus?

All that comment got Junior Officer was the door slammed in his face, as Senior Officer and Jersey took off without him.

You gotta love the respect your elders culture.

To be continued…

One Crazy Korean Night: A Saga in 4 Parts (I)

What’s that noise?

We’d just set up camp al fresco style, a $3-a-night site with sleeping bags under the Asian moon. I hadn’t noticed anything, but now that Charles-Michael mentioned it there was a faint whirring in the ambiance. It was revving up and winding down in strange intervals.

Look over there. Someone’s got a fire going. I think it’s a gas fire, which would explain the irregularity.

English voices were coming from the site; one of the accents was pretty good. Then someone started scrambling through the woods nearby us. That was a little creepy, but it was late, we were tired, and we thought we’d just sleep it off.

We were wrong.

…

The reason we were tired was an 8-hour mountain trek—from sea level to the top of Korea and back. We had selected Seorok as our vacation destination, a small village sandwiched between the Pacific Ocean and the foot of Seoroksan National Park. (San is Korean for ‘mountain,’ and we’ve been told Seorok means ‘bear’ but haven’t been able to confirm it.)

The climb gave us plenty of opportunity to practice our one and only Korean greeting (anyung-hasaio) and a chance to observe the natives as well. Apparently they don’t believe in switchbacks, and their old people are intense. While a Colorado trail might wind round and round a mountain, the Korean version heads straight up—with the occasional rope to help you and your 90-year-old ajjuma along.

After the ridiculously steep descent, we had our first Korean bathhouse experience. Imagine jumping from pool to hotub at your local Holiday Inn, and you’ll have good idea of what it was like. The only difference is that the water is really salty and everyone is naked.

A few misdirected bus rides and one long walk later, we chanced upon a campsite for the night. The prospect of practically free lodging drew us in, and since we didn’t have a tent or much of anything to setup we were ready for bed in a few minutes.

That’s when a man came out of the woods, saying something like this…

Adflakj qeriio therajkljr camfire?

What’s that? Your campfire?

Adlfjkfljal lkjkfja lkjlrkejal campfire?

You’re getting wood for the campfire?

Aniyo, aldkfjl afdkalfj flakjdf campfire?

You want us to come to your campfire?

Ah, yes, yes, afdfalkjf, come to campfire, yes.

Well, okay…

To be continued…

Le Mot Juste

As I slumped in my chair on Monday night, having just finished my first day of teaching, I wondered why I had even begun this ordeal. I was 70 hours in-country, still operating on jet-lag and sleep deficit (two separate items in this case), and I had been awake since 4:30 that morning. How, I thought, could I sum up this… phenomenon…in one word?

On the previous afternoon, several employees of the Bluth School were out eating & talking. I mentioned something about looking forward to observing classes during the next week, a throwaway comment meant to stimulate conversation with people with whom I lacked common experience. Jay, a Canadian, quipped, “What is this observation of which you speak?”

“Haha,” I said.

Blank stares replied.

The phrase “Thrown to the lions” came to mind.

Thus began a panicked twenty-four hour race against the clock: listening to tapes, reading textbooks, hurrying through classroom procedures, checking the wording of my contract. In the early evening, around 2 am Colorado time, Lucille, the head teacher, explained a stack of forms she had designed to help incoming teachers with lesson-planning. In the state I was in, each sheet struck my mind like an incoming shell, and by the end I felt like I was struggling through sleep-induced mustard-gas in a paper-pitted No-Man’s Land. Dulce et decorum non est. 

I awoke tense and harried in the pre-dawn dark on Monday, and continued in this state into the afternoon, when my first class began at 3:30. The things I had written down the night before had to be re-interpreted in the light of morning and a bit more sleep, and the ramshackle plans I had rigged the previous night were in need of serious firming-up. Predictably, a final route-switch added the finishing touch to this grand debacle when someone in the secretarial staff changed most of the room numbers at the (literal) last minute. The chain of events which had been sloping downhill all day continued to gain speed.

I would like to say that while Benedick was my favorite role, Monday night was my most skilful; or that I performed with a rare grace borne of difficulty and necessity. These, alas, are the accomplishments of greater men.

I hacked and clod-hopped through class after class, misunderstanding words, finding I had left a critical sheet of information elsewhere, being that criminally boring teacher I had so often despised. I smiled, I was cheerful, I might have even been bubbly for a moment, but all to no avail. It passed, by turns, in a roller-coaster haze of adrenaline and shame. Finally, at 9:20 pm, it was finished. I staggered back to the teachers’ room.

Oddly, my most powerful feeling was of overwhelming grace: a youthful me was not in attendance. When I was thirteen, I veritably licked my chops at the scent of that creature at the front of the class plodding through the material with the intelligence and poise of a very stupid water buffalo. I had just experienced the upside of “Learn or be beaten/Respect your elders” Confucian culture: despite all my blunderings, the students were extremely polite and followed every foot-induced gag with oh-so-close attention. My karma may have hit my dogma, but my dogma gave at least as good as it got.

At 9:24, amidst the euphoria of a job done wretchedly but done all the same, I realized that one word was not sufficient to contain this experience. A compound word, however, might encapsulate it very nicely: train-wreck.