I feel funny

I had an action packed weekend. This is where I contradict myself and tell you it wasn't that action packed. I went out both nights though. Very unusual. I went to work on Friday, on my national holiday. It's funny, I haven't been home for Canada Day since 2002. I doesn't feel like such a special day for me anymore. Not having fireworks makes it a regular day. My classes went fine I guess except for maybe 2. My Nobel class has a new kid in it. Dan. So now I have a class of 7 boys. Everyone wanted to sit next to him and one of them ended up crying. I don't know why. The new kid doesn't seem all that interesting to me. I took so much time trying to control them. They had 3 pages of easy math to do. I was going to give them a game to play for the last 15 minutes of class. I forgot the game though. Anyways, it took them such a long time to do. Actually, I don't think it took them that long but I decided to make them go through each answer. I figure the only reason I could possibly be teaching a math class is to improve their fluency with numbers. So they had to tell me numbers like 592, 934, 253, etc. It was a bit painful but it was probably better than them going nuts for 10 minutes at the end of class with nothing to do. I really hate one of the kids in that class. I probably shouldn't say that but oh, well. It's like he enjoys being stupid and when the bell rings he runs out of there so fast. I was going to make a simile but I can't think of a reason to actually run that fast. Maybe it's because he looks so happy to leave. Running away from some kind of disaster usually isn't associated with smiling faces. I love it when that bell rings too. Of course all it means is that I have another class in 5 minutes.

I hate a really great class that day too. I love my 503 class. Mary, Lisa, Lize. All of them are good but Sami who speaks only in Korean for most of the class. He's not really a problem though. I felt like I was on fire. They were asking questions and I was giving them great explanations. I think that's the only class where most of them actually enjoy learning English. There's usually only 1-2 students per class with an actual interest. They don't come everyday. Maybe that better. There's nothing like my 403 class to make me feel like such an utter failure. They speak Korean, don't listen to me, hit each other, basically every kind of unacceptable behaviour. I've given up on them. I also have a new book to teach them. I don't like it. It had maybe 5 words on the page and some flags. How am I suppose to possibly stretch this into 40 minutes. I preferred the Smile book. There was more to teach, I was given more pages, and there was a workbook. At least I could pretend to teach by giving them the answers and have them copy them down. The only girl in that class actually wants to learn so maybe I'll just teach her during the class. There's one boy in there. His sister is in the most advanced class and speaks really well. Her brother though can barely put a sentence together and spends the class drawing in his textbook. He doesn't understand what I tell them. If they don't start early, there's no point giving them a foreign teacher. They don't pick up on as much and should know enough about language, what a verb, adjective, etc. are. I feel it's useless for them to be there with me. I gave them a test though and corrected it in front of them. I was surprised they realised they had made mistakes. I would have thought it would all be meaningless to them. Maybe I'm wrong. I hate one kid in that class too. He used the biggest word I'd ever heard any Korean use. He asked me if I was transgendered. Fucking David. He also hits the others and is a few years older than them. It's also the last class of the day and hardly anyone is left in the school, especially on Friday, so there are even fewer things that could be done about it.

After my painful class, I went over to Matt and Renee's. There was some Canada day party going on at this bar and we were getting a ride. I invited Alex and of course, instead of going to the bar right away, we made all these detours. I also told him to go to the wrong bar. It all worked out in the end I suppose. It was alright I guess. The music was a bit too loud but it was bettter than what I usually do on Friday nights. I had a bit too much to drink. I stopped at the expensive 24 convenience store and got something to drink for the next morning. I don't know why she doesn't sell water. It's all flavoured water and sports drinks. Last time I drank too much, I laid in my bed knowing that I needed to drink something but needed to get up and go downstairs for that. I bought a bottle of coke. I really don't like coke all that much but somehow I end up drinking a lot of it throughout the day. I never thought that caffeine had much of an effect on me but I feel like I need it to get through my afternoon classes. It's so tiring for so many different reasons.

I've resolved to try to live a bit healthier. I've been going to bed too late. I haven't been eating enough. I don't drink enough water. This weekend I feel like I had more alcohol than anything else. Actually, I probably did. I just feel so tired sometimes that the prospect of making food to eat seems like to much effort to bother. I could list what I've had to eat in the past few days but it's a bit too disturbing how little I've been eating. I went out for pizza last night and I should've been so hungry but I could barely finish 3 slices of pizza. My stomach has shruken I think and I'm becoming immune to the sensation of hunger. I'm going to try to have at least 2 decent meals a day. Something like that anyway. Also more water.

I've managed to go 2-3 days without TV. Actually, that might be a bit of an overstatement. It's Sunday afternoon and I haven't watched TV since Friday night but it wasn't at my house so I don't know whether to count that or not. I can't remember if I watched any on Friday morning while I was getting dressed. Actually, I don't think I did. Let's see at what time today I break down. I've been listening to music instead of having the TV on for background noise.

I spent most of the day yesterday on my bed. There's really nowhere else to place myself in the apartment though. I have a couch on the other side of the room but can't imagine a reason to sit on it. I spend my life so close to the ground now. The other apartments I been too are based like 3-4 feet above the floor. I'm maybe 1-2 feet. I don't even have a chair. Of course, I don't have table either, well I do but a chair would put my knees about 20cm above it. There's nowhere to put one. I really don't mind it but it's very strange to see where other people live.

Last night, I was supposed to go to some party at a hotel on the outskirts of the city. Actually, I have no idea where it was. That's just what I was told by a source who it turns out is not 100% reliable. We had to take a bus there. I ended up missing the bus but wasn't too upset about it. I really wasn't in the mood to drink for another night. I didn't have energy energy and just kind of droned along for the whole night for probably the reasons I listed above. The heat too played a factor. We went downtown and tried to find a restaurant so we could get something to eat. We went to three of them that were just closing. Why do restaurants in Korea close at 930 or 1030 on a Saturday night? They were western restaurants. I'm also a bit embarrassed to go to western restaurants. The chains anyway. I was caught at McDonalds the other day but a coworker. It was only my 3rd time there. I wasn't hungry on Friday (I think this was Friday) but I knew I had to eat something. McDonald's just was there and I wanted something I could eat without feeling hesitant. On Thursday, I went out to a Korean restaurant without a Korean. We had this giant bowl full of food that was much too spicy for me to actually be edible. Good thing I wasn't too hungry despite not having had anything to eat. Yes, at least 2 decent meals a day. It was interesting though and gave me a chance to refill my fluid levels. Yesterday, in the cab ride home, I just felt like a machine. I had no mental energy left. I watched Around the World in 80 Days. I'm happy to say it wasn't my choice. I wanted to see Mission: Cleopatra but it was probably just as bad.

Maybe it's all this social activity that is burning me out. I used to come home and just laze around for a few hours and go to bed. Actually, I was going to the gym for like an hour a day. I'd get too tired by Tuesday to go on Wednesday though. It's probably very good of me to go. I don't know why I'm writing so much today. It's probably just an excuse for me to avoid getting out of bed. That's right, I type in bed. I think I'm leaving elbow grooves in the mattress. I really should get up though, do some laundry, clean my apartment, go grocery shopping, pretend to look at curtains and a/c units so that I can still complain and avoid criticism for doing nothing. Maybe I will find something. I could use my savings from my utilities. Matt and Renee spend over $100 dollars a month on electricity I think. Mine is about $10. I feel as though I might have some giant bill that goes directly to my employer and is just deducted automatically. Utilities are cheap here I think. I don't know what my water bill is though and my cable is probably a bit too much. It includes internet though and I need at least one or the other to maintain some semblance of sanity. Maybe they are having the opposite effect.