Corporation Haters

What a damn mess my mouth has become. After the toothache of last month that led to the removal of a tooth (to be replaced soon), that ulcer has now poisoning my daily existence as I try not to open my mouth too wide. Brushing my teeth today, my mouth filled with blood.

Though I do admit I prefer a little blood with my pain. Pain is only fun if it's visible.

Anyway, I was going to catch up with my weekend and the last couple of days. It was a busy weekend, and fairly constructive. It began with my Korean class, which went fine. Being as it was, Teachers' Day on Saturday, as well as Rose Day, I brought a rose for my Korean teacher (that she is attractive is, of course, incidental). I've received three roses from students, so I thought I would recycle one. My teacher seemed bemused and somewhat baffled by the gesture. Maybe I should have brought her some cleaning products, as the trend for Teachers' Day appears to be.

After that, I met with Matt and saw Kill Bill Vol 2 in the cinema. I haven't seen the first film so I can't compare, but I gather it was much less violent, but I still enjoyed it. Then we headed over to Rebecca's flat, where her and fellow Irishgirl and sort-of flatmate Carolyn were supposed to be having a barbecue. The weather had put a stop to this, as it was pissing down rain, but an indoor version was had instead.

It was a good night, nothing exceptional, but generally fun, I did end up in a club later on, but after just one drink wisely realised that if I kept going I'd kept pointlessly drunk, and so headed back home, probably for about 3am which is early for a Saturday. This weekend I plan not to go out at all at night.

Sunday morning wasn't too groggy, and later in the afternoon I met up with Matt to begin our Russian study. It was just the alphabet and having previously visisted countries that use the Cyrillic alphabet (Montenegro, Macedonia, Bulgaria) it was more a reminder for me than actual learning. The language looks to be fun and I'm looking forward to beginning.

After that then, was something of massive excitement - an Indian meal (well, technically Pakistani I think). I'd first heard about it last week and Matt had been there on Friday with the ethnically Romanian anti-corporation girl "Iguana" that he knows. He was there with her friends, who all sounded horribly negative: anti-Bush, anti-war, anti-capitalism, anti-corporation. I appreciate having these beliefs don't necessarily make you a bad person, but like many things, it depends how you carry them. And from Matt's reliable reports, they carried them badly. The best example is when Matt mentioned to them that he'd managed to find Colgate in a shop, a rarity in Korea. This simple and happy story was twisted by them into how evil Colgate was as a company, probably for just making profits. They remind me of the departed John, whose view on everything in life was relentlessly cynical.

For the record, I'm not a big fan of Bush but I don't hate the man either, I think the war was done for good reasons but subsequently could have been handled a lot better, I like capitalism and I think corporations are great.

Anyway, I veer off course. The Indian meal was a buffet, effectively 10,000 Won (#5) for all I could eat. Which was quite a lot. I was virtually disabled by the amount I ate, stuck vegetating in my seat until I managed to haul myself into a taxi with Matt and watch a film at a DVD room - a very creepy Korean film called The Tale of Two Sisters.

That was my weekend. Monday morning the Indian meal caught up with me in a big way and my body managed to demonstrate that in some impressive ways. I apologise for the crudeness, but I managed to do a fart that I believe last for 20 seconds. That must be some sort of record.

Yesterday was a school trip to some pottery place with the kindergarten, where I made what almost resembled a teapot, and the kids all managed to create total messes.

And today, fighting through the pain in my mouth (made worse because the ulcer is always rubbing against a tooth) there's some sort of staff night out. We're meeting up with some ex-teachers: Jasmine (who left just as a I arrived), Ally (left about 2 months ago) and Chan/Roy (about 3 months ago). All Korean. The bleak John may be coming too, but I hope not. Physical pain is fine enough, but I really can't face the bleak mental anguish of the world being an oppressive, conspiratorial and downright corporation-controlled superstate that John would have me believe.

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