Work

At school my students write a diary and it is my job to correct it, I kid turned in a set of stories that I gotta tell you as I inspired it, I'll write it down exactly as I recieved it. Its from a 9 year old writing in his second language.

friday.
I fish pet
fish is cute.
I have a very many money.
I'll have fish.

Monday
i pet a 3 Goldfish.
pet a fish is very excited.

wednesday.
Today too, I feed a gold fish.
But fish can't moved!
I'm very surprised.
I touch a fish, but fish can't moved
Fish is Dead!
So, I'm sad.

A Mate Sent Me This.

MATES by Murray Hartin

I've traveled down some dusty roads,
Both crooked tracks and straight,
And I have learnt life's noblest creed
Summed up in one word, "Mate".
I'm thinkin' back across the years,
A thing I do of late
And these words stick between me ears
"You gotta have a mate."
Someone who'll take you as you are
Regardless of your state
And stand as firm as Ayers Rock
Because he is your mate.
Me mind goes back to '43
To slavery and hate
When man's one chance to stay alive
Depended on his mate.
With bamboo for a billy-can
And bamboo for a plate,
A bamboo paradise for bugs
Was bed for me and mate.
You'd slip and slither through the mud
And curse your rotten fate
But then you'd hear a quiet word
"Don't drop your bundle, mate."
And though it's all so long ago
This truth I have to state,
A man don't know what lonely means
'til he has lost his mate.
If there's a life that follers this,
If there's a Golden Gate,
The welcome that I wanna hear
Is just "Goodonya mate".
And so to all who ask us why
We keep these special dates,
Like ANZAC Day,
I tell 'em "Why?!
We're thinkin' of our mates."
And when I've left the driver's seat
And 'anded in me plates
I'll tell Ol' Peter at the door
"I've come to join me mates."

The Weekend that Was...

I know that I blatantly stole this title off my brother (or is that bother?) but I know he won't care, On Friday night I was meant to go to to a party but that got canned and I ended up at the local followed by the ever present Nori bann, those places are really cool, I would never too it back home but the rules don't work when your in another country. Myself and My Pommie mate belted out some Emo style Oasis (just kidding, Jangles CALM DOWN.)

Just a thought, as I'm now teaching English i had better get this straight, does the full stop in the last sentence come before or after the closing bracket? I'm pretty sure it's inside but Mum, write and let me know.

I had Mickey D's for breakfast before going home as the sun rose. Then I was up for the races at 11. I was in the shower when the phone rang so I jumped out, dripping wet, bollock naked and slipped, slammed my knee into the corner of the step leading up to my bathroom, threw up (from the pain, not the from last nights efforts) , (Hehe, no full stop required there but do I have the comma in the correct position? Is it required but then can you have two sets of bracketed words next to each other without any thing in between?) answered the phone, limped to the bus stop to get to the track, discovered I had missed the bus, bought some chicken and beer and jumped in a cab. I was limping all day and night, pretty sweet now but still purple. It did also mean I couldn't dance all night, OH WELL, WHATEVER, NEVERMIND.

Those bastards at the gate confiscated my beer! but don't worry I successfully held on to the chicken. This Rooster looks after his own. Today, I only lost 30 bucks which was a much better effort than last weeks $88 shocker. As I left I got my bevvies back which were promptly downed in the taxi ride to Busan where we went to Hyundai for all you can knock back for 15 smackers.

Before going to the pub we had to wait a while for the dam thing to open so we bought some brews from a Dairy, sat outside on those ubiquitous white plastic tables and chairs which are most probably imported from the Hastings Warehouse and played cards for about an hour and a half. The pub rocked, had a good laugh, took my mate who was blind to eat, she fell asleep with her head on her plate, finally got her home, got home myself, slept till 5pm then went out for a nice polite conversation on Sunday evening. After staggering home on Monday morning I reflected on what a pleasant evening with scintillating conversation it actually was.

Poker tonight.

Anzac Day tomorrow, I have organised for us Korean Anzacs to go to the War Memorial (This memorial is for the Japan Occupation and the Korean War) in my city for some coffee and Rum. I dunno if we have to do it at 6am our local time or 6am Kiwi time. What are the rules?

May All living Kiwis and Aussies give a thought to those fullas who went to war for the future of us all.

Alcoholic Hepatitis?

Is this just one of those new fang'dangle Buzzwords for a drunk?

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4032601a1823.html

Modern Day Prince of Batsmen.

Tonight I am going to my first Korean House Party. I'm sure they still don't understand what parties are all about but I've promised them some Kiwi drinking games in exchange for some Korean ones. This will be interesting...

Off to the Gee Gee's again tomorrow followed by a night in Busan.

Brian Lara, your a Legend.

The Saturday after the "Fish Incident."

Well, I woke up with a bolt at a quarter past Eleven, normally this would be a natural time to wake up but as I mentioned in yesterdays blog I had been trying to work up a group to gamble with me at the races. The thing is a few people had said yeah sure, you explain it all and we will have a right old laugh. I had told them all that they had to be outside Home Plus, the K.F.C corner before 11 to catch the free bus to the races.

I jumped out of bed and immediately threw up, I spent half a god damm hour dry retching before I could stomach some water and fuck off to the cab stand. I had no idea how to explain to the cabbie that I wanted to go the races so I thought I would take along the last weeks form guide in the hope that somewhere on the cover it said Busan Race track. So I hail a cab, explain what I want, he nods and I thought I was home and hosed but oh no, never be too sure about anything in this country. We drove for 10 minutes and I got dropped off outside a Video Parlour that had a spanking new advertisement painted on the front window advertising a bloody horse racing game! I jumped out, not even bothering another attempt at explaining and got in the next cab I found. This time it worked out just fine. I walk onto the track, find my mates and promptly fell over an elderly woman from South Africa. Talk about first impressions, she has only been in the city a few weeks and had met some people who invited her to the races!

Any way, saw a wicked little filly absolutely annihilate the field with an astonishing burst of power, it was just too bad that I could not figure out her name I'll have to get my Korean mates on to it.

Went to Busan for a birthday that night, Sunday evening went to Sasang for an Indian meal, I had the lamb, then back home and went to the movies and saw Ghost Rider, a bit of a let down.

Monday morning bought some "I'm sorry chocolates" for the boss, she had a good old laugh at my expense and made sure that everyone knew about it. She's a cool chick.

Who knew Gold Fish could be so much trouble?

3 Wednesdays ago I left my local and decided to get my self a Big Mac on the way home, there is nothing unusual about that. In the same building as Mickey D's is a Supermarket, more of a big department store selling everything a Korean House wife needs, like live Octopus, Kimchi and stuff to make your flat smell good. I was wandering around in a tiny haze of drunken thought when I came across the Gold Fish section, as many people know I love fishing and have always kept Gold Fish as pets, so I decided to splash out and buy some. I got myself a plush looking tank, pumps, filters, gravel, the works and took it to my work and set it up. I thought I wouldn't buy the fish at this time but get it all set up at first. So I carried all this stuff to work and that time I successfully turned off the alarms. The next day when I woke up I saw written on my T.V screen in a white board marker (over here the white boards are actually green but that don't matter to much) a note to myself to go and buy 붕어방 , I was thinking W.T.F? So I have a coffee, a smoke and a shower before it dawns on me what this note to myself meant.

I should explain that this 붕어방 is pronounced Boung or Bann and is a snack you can buy on the street, it is kinda like a pikelet in the sense of taste but the shape is that of a fish that looks remarkably like Nemo of the Disney fame. It comes in two flavors, one is a red bean type of paste (tastes much better than it sounds) and the other is a sweet sugar like tasting thingy that is very similar to custard. It literally means fish bread. Any way there is a woman outside my work that sells it and it was the first Korean word I learnt to spell in Hanguel. I buy a lot of this in the evenings and usually end up with a net full for my students.

So after work the next day I go with some of my colleagues to the Supermarket and buy Six Gold Fish, I named the Fat one 붕어방, the small one Liz, the fish with a black tail Shana, with a black belly tail Kelly, Jenny has the smallest face and Ava has the white face. These 5 lovely names are the English nick names of my Korean colleagues.

Now you are all probably thinking get on with it you Dick. We don't care about your dammed fish so I'll tell you why they are so much trouble. Last Friday I was at the local drinking a new beer that has just been put on the market called Cass Red, it is being advertised as "The flavour of Passion" and as such as a strength of 6.9% The language on the bottle is in English and I can tell you that I have had a great time explaining it to the non English speaking Korean waitresses. Anyway, I was planning on going to a Noriban with everyone (Karaoke) and we thought it wouldn't be appropriate to sing sober so we also started on the Soju, which is the local spirit and is made out of Kumara and tastes like a weak vodka. We got so smashed that we never made the Noriban and instead spent most of the night outside drinking Soju as the local doesn't sell it, being a strictly Beer and Whisky pub so we had to buy it from the dairy on the corner and drink it outside.

Anyway, you can imagine the state I was in, stumbling around, talking a load of bollocks about the cricket and trying to work up a clan to go the races the next day. Around 4 in the morning I went home but on the way I remembered my 6 Leviathans and could not for the life of me remember if I had feed them or not. So I search around in my pockets for the keys to my work, got my bearings and headed off in the general direction. I find myself on the 8th floor of the building where I work and this is where those bloody fish turned into trouble.

I unlock the doors and promptly forgot about the alarm. I walked right on in when I was stopped by an ear shattering piercing squeal of an alarm. Normally this would not be a problem as you can just turn it off quickly and the Security company won't bother. But oh no, I wasn't thinking quite straight and absolutely ballsed it up, after a minute or so I get the alarm off and think here we go, security is on its way, even if I was sober I wouldn't have had enough Korean to explain this situation and really had no idea what to do, I knew I couldn't just reset the alarm, lock the door and scarper cause then it may make me look a tiny bit guilty when after all I was only thinking about the stomachs of my new fish, so I pulled up a pew, sparked a smoke and waited, I was in hysterics by the time the security guard turned up, I was just sitting there as pissed as Jangles laughing my head off about the whole situation when I spot this dude walking towards me wearing a flak jacket and with a not to shabby looking pistol in his side holster.

He looks at me, wearing his best tough guy face and in the gruffest Korean voice I have ever heard said something to me, god knows what it was so I say

"Hey, I 'm Dave and I work here. I've come to feed my fish."

He looks at me, I look at him, not one word of understanding between us so I leave him standing there and walk into my classroom, I motion for him to follow and very deliberately feed the fish. By now he has to be thinking that I'm straight out of the looney bin. He then walked over to the phone list on the wall and rings up my boss, it's about half 4 by now and I can see that maybe talking to the boss who can translate is not a bad idea. She gets on the phone in a groggy voice, hears this wanna be tough guy, then my drunken Kiwi accent explaining to her why the alarms were going off, talks to the security dude, he gives a little laugh, slaps me on the back and motions to the door which I then after resetting the alarm lock and walk on outta there.

Who would of thought Gold Fish could do that to a bloke?

What is the speed of dark?

I'm on a break, thought I'd write and tell you all that I forgot to pay my power bill and last night I get home and the power is turned off. Oh well, whatever, nevermind. Tried to sort it out today but really fuck knows if it will be on when I get home. All paid up now so heres hoping. This morning I got woken up by some thunder, now it is hot and muggy, going to pub tonight but only because they have power and lights and stuff. Going to the races tomorrow only cause they too have electricity and a birthday party in Busan in the evening but this time only cause there will be alcohol and food. She most probably has electricity in her flat but I'm not too sure.

Bloody Sri Lankan's making me look bad in front of my Korean mates. Spose it's better to get a hiding at this stage rather than in the final.

Hey, my boss just walked in and threw me a bag of chips. I had a weird discussion with her this morning, she asked me what "most minute" meant I said "aye, where did you hear that" she went "I read it in the text book with one of this afternoon's lessons, haven't you gone over it" Was she trying to pull one over me? I had gone over it earlier and didn't remember it so I looked back through the text. Sure enough it was there, same spelling and all. It took me a jiffy to realise that it was minute as in teeny tiny that we had read. I had immediately understood the difference and had never thought twice about it, she read it and automatically though of minute as in 60 seconds to a minute and got all confused when it didn't fit the sentence!

The more I teach English the weirder I realise it is.

One One Was A Race Horse

On Saturday I finally managed to get my self to the track, I had a few dubious feelings about what it would be like, how it would look, quality of the horses etc but what I saw changed all that. It was plush, the grandstand and track (though dirt) was state of the art, it was exceptionally well set up and catered for many people who were there for a day out rather than a day of gambling. The inside of the track had a man made lake, a skate rink and picnic areas, to the side of the grandstand was where all the kids hung out, their parents had hired bikes for them and there was a good couple of hundred kids pulling skids next to the pony rides.

We walked in and the entrance was free, we buy a form guide and immediately realise we are going to have to sit down and work the fucker out as it was all in Hanguel (Korean word for Korean writing) we sit down right in front of the winning post and work out about a third of the race book, numbers are numbers where ever you are so it wasn't too hard and set about placing a bet. After a major mistake (I placed a $1000 bet instead of $10) I got it all sorted and set about finding the bird cage to get a look at the horses. The ring was just like any other except that it it's own smaller grandstand. The horses paraded around and when the jockeys came out before mounting they all lined up and bowed to the crowd!

There were four races on the card which were every hour on the hour and on the half hour the races from Seoul where broadcast on one of the biggest T.V screens I have ever seen which was just to the side of the winning post in front of the grandstand. Between races they did bloody track work! it was very confusing, I did manage to but a bet on a race in Seoul by looking at the horses about to work out at the Busan track!

They don't have all the betting systems that I'm used to , only 5 types. Win, Place, Quinella, Exacta and multiples of all of them, By the end of the day I was down $35 but pulled off a $38 collect in the last for a 3 buck win on the day.

The name of the track was Busan Gyeougnam Race Park and if your keen you can check it out on http://www.kra.co.kr/ click on the English button on the top right.

I did in my stuttering Pidgin Koran manage to cancel that $1000 bet and I know when my Dad reads this he would have been worrying right down to the last paragraph.