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4/29/2005
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KLB - Free Shipping Bananza!
It pays to read your e-mail once in awhile. I just found out Lulu.com is offering free domestic and international shipping on all orders over $25. That makes a big difference considering they were charging as much as $8 per book before. If you ever wanted to buy KLB - Special Edition but were put off by the shipping cost, now's your chance. This book contains the complete and most recent version of Island of Fantasy as well as 120 pages of theme based posts that used to be on the blog, loads of pictures, and a variety of bonus material. If you order along with the regular version of IOF (makes a great gift or at least a great coaster for drinks), you come out exactly eligible for the free shipping. What luck!
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written by shawn matthews
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4/28/2005
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KLB - Birthday Gig
I take back every bad thing I've ever said about Bonnie. She was very nice today and even gave me a bottle of Jacob's Creek Australian Chardonnay, which by coincidence is one of my favorite wines. I love Chardonnay.
The kids were plain terrible all day. A few times Bonnie said they need more discipline and they shouldn't speak Korean so much. What can you expect though when you're throwing a birthday party? Later she said not to worry, she knows she's the reason the kids were acting up and it was important they have fun today. That was nice of her. Personally the kids had me so crazy I almost snuck into the bathroom to down the wine. If only I had had a corkscrew with me.
Julie's having a belated birthday dinner with coworkers (is it me or does it seem our birthday celebrations just keep going on and on?) so I stopped off at Walmart and picked up some boneless strips of chicken breast, a package of mushrooms and some soy sauce. I'm cooking now and will eat alone. Then it's off to the health club. Going to do cardio today to work off this growing gut. I'm getting a little better with the jumprope but basically I have no coordination. Still, it's good exercise and it works for me. I can't stand running machines. Plus it gives me an excuse to watch the aerobics class, as the jump ropes are next to the window. Oh, in case you've been following, Julie never did sign-up. She's just too tired after work. Who can blame her? She leaves here at 9:00 AM and doesn't get home until 7 or 8 usually. At least she seems to like her job. That would drive me nuts - unless it was for a lot of moolah.
After the health club I will come home and watch Queer Eye for the Straight Guy with Julie. I never thought I'd get into a show with that name, but it is pretty good. Acually I don't like watching TV that much, but Julie does and I catch myself getting interested in the shows she watches just because they're on. Next thing I know, I'm hooked.
Julie usually hits the sack at around 11 these days. She doesn't have much free time during the week, poor girl. But we have 4 days off next week - something to look forward to. Since I don't get up until around 10:00, I usually stay awake until 2:00 or later using the computer, chatting to my friends and family (mostly my sister giving me a long list of reasons to never have kids) playing XBOX, then I drift to sleep watching a video.
Well, time to eat my chicken dinner. Thank you for reading this exciting post. Have a nice day.
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written by shawn matthews
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4/27/2005
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KLB - Laying Low
Laying low until I get my new camera this weekend. Nothing really new to report on anyway. Everything is fine at work for the most part. Bonnie will be there once again to watch me all day tomorrow. It's one of those "birthday party" days, meaning she'll hang around until the last ten minutes of class then give out cake to all the kids and little gifts to whoever's b'day falls this month. Maybe I'll get a box of pencils! Yipee!
Basically I hate this day. I mean, who wants their boss watching them teach? Also, the kids can't focus with boxes of cake sitting there and, with three adults roamining around the room, it's a little much. Then the kids make a mess eating and never finish on time and I lose my between-class breaks. Later I'll probably hear about the next "open-house" which is coming soon, hurray. Another day when the parents will sit in chairs in the back of the room and watch me teach their kids. You know, that is just a bad concept. I get the idea - the parents want to know what's going on, but it's contrived and unnatural, not to mention unnerving. Especially with me being a foreigner. It's so awkward and I can't even have a discussion with them after class. Haha, I just got a great - no, ingenious idea. I'll hand out a bunch of puzzles and sit at my desk and read a magazine that day. Half of the parents will yank their kids and I'll have smaller, more quiet and effective classes.
Like I said, most things are going good these days. I've been going to the health club regularly, something I feel very good about, but I've also been eating more than usual; so my arms and chest are getting bigger - but so is my stomach. Would help if I gave up beer, I guess.
I contacted some people about my book tonight and review is in the works for The Korea Herald and Pusanweb, a famous expat site in, you guessed it, Pusan. It's pretty hard and kind of degrading trying to self promote something you've written. I tried going the pay-route and bought some advertising including "adwords" on Google, the latter being a big oops. From them I got about 200 hits over 4 weeks and a bill for $90. I'm not sure how many of those 200 hits resulted in sales but certainly not enough to cover that kind of outrageous fee, so I cancelled. I guess I'm stuck grovelling for book reviews and whatnot and working on this other book geared for the Korean market. I certainly don't regret the experience of writing IOF, but if I could go back in time I'd write it with Koreans in mind, not foreigners, seeing as there are about a zillion Koreans for every foreigner here. That was kind of a bad idea, I must say. Anyway, we'll see. The new idea is something to focus on and keep positive about anyway...
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written by shawn matthews
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4/25/2005
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KLB - Happy Birthday To Me
With Julie's birthday last week and then the weekend, it feels like we've been celebrating for ages. But today it was official. I'm 29 again, yay! Julie took me to Outback Steakhouse tonight. She also got me a pretty ice cream cake from Baskin Robins, but we're too full to eat it.
All in all it was certainly a lot better birthday than last year when I sat home all day on a Sunday (after a brief trip to Taiwan) in Nowhere-dong Korea feeding stray cats. My good (and apparently only) friend John came up from Gangnam on the bus and spent the weekend with us again. We were all going to go out but we were unable to step away from the Xbox and ended up just staying here and drinking German beers and playing new games all night.
James, this guy who used to come out and visit once in awhile, didn't show up. He went to someone else's birthday gig instead, I guess. He's been acting a bit weird lately anyway, singing songs praising Takeshima and the Sea of Japan (it's actually Dokdo and the East Sea, if you ask any sensible person) and showing everyone his autographed Apollo Ono photo - you know, the skater that clearly lost in the last Winter Olympics to the Korean, Kim Dong Sun, who was robbed blind!
Julie woke John and I up at the crack of dawn yesterday. It took a bit of effort to get John up and going as he's used to getting up at 2:30 (when his cell phone alarm went off later). Once he got up, we went over to the department store and got some tall coffees from The Coffee Bean, and some chicken "kebaps" and giant mandu dumplings from the food court. Later, after ripping the Xbox control from John's clamped, sweaty hands, we all went out to Migliore in Myongdong. John knew of a shop there that sells perfect knock-off Diesel Jeans and other fakes. They look and feel exactly the same, but instead of paying $200, they cost just $38. Julie bought be a nice pair for me and I picked myself another pair of imitation Paper Denims for about $45. You really can't tell the difference. The only giveaway is a small tear-away tag on the inside of the pants that says Made in Thailand, or Hong Kong. Having been unable to find a decent (affordable) pair of jeans that fit in ages, this was a real treat. Then we went out for a nice pizza dinner and John headed home.
Bonnie sent me a message this morning to wish me a happy birthday, which was nice of her. I guess she made a note off my passport. She informed Ally who made all the kids sing me happy birthday each class. That was pretty cute. Especially the first class, an ear splitting chorus that sounded something like this:
Happy baday to ew
Happy baday ooh ooh
hakky mmmday mmm, mmm, mmm
ooh oh ooh ooh, ooh ooh.
Teacher, no cake? Party! Cake! I'm hungry! No Cake???????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anyway, back to shameless self promotion. I just ordered up another big box of Island of Fantasy books. Thirty will be available at Seoul Selection later in the week and I'll drop another 10-20 off at What the Book? in Itaewon. If we get around to it, Julie and I are going to try to contact more bookstores here and in other cities. So far I've only tried those two places, and they've not only stocked my book but have sold out several times. You can also order directly from me, the easiest option if you prefer Paypal or plastic, or if you don't live in Korea. By the way, this newest edition has chapter breaks, a few miscellaneous fixes and the cover is supposed to be printed on glossy white paper to make it brighter. They were using some off-yellow color before, for whatever reason.
Well, that's it for today. Thanks for all the e-mails from everyone. I'm surprised anyone still reads this without any pictures. I'm almost positive I'm going to buy a camera later in the week. Julie is insisting I get one before we take another trip next week. We both have another 4-day weekend and we're going to rent a car again and head into the country, or so we've been planning.
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written by shawn matthews
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