Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ya-ta Boy]

Recently there has been an increasing number of posts about socks�� It would seem more and more people are uncomfortable with the present situation in regard to socks. I don��t blame them. I am too. I once thought I had the sock problem permanently solved, but it has lately become a problem again. I thought, as a public service, I'd tell how I became aware that the sock problem has returned to haunt me, how I thought I had solved it in the past and how I plan to take care of it in the future.

My current awareness came about as a result of meeting a Korean teacher...

About a month ago I got sold downriver by my very rural high school. I was assigned to go to Middle School #1 twice a week to teach all 29 students for two hours at a shot. It��s about 5 km up the road from my regular job at the very rural high school, in the opposite direction from which I live.

The first time I went there was on a Thursday afternoon. I pulled in behind the school and started to get out of my car. A 40-something ajosshi, pale and with a wild-eyed panicky look on his face, rushed out of the school and hurried over to my car. ������!�� [Suck Kyu! For those without a Korean font] he shouted in my face, grabbing my hand and pumping it up and down. ������!�� Fortunately, I��m no newbie. I knew I was not being attacked or insulted. In fact, I was meeting the legendary ���� for the first time. I��ve met �μ� [Min-Suck] and ����[Suck-Hee], ��� [Huh-Gyu], �μ� [In-Soon] and two ����s [Bum-Sucks] but never the long-sought but never spotted ����. One of my Korean life-time goals had finally been accomplished.

I was his first foreigner, so he was understandably nervous and a little panicky. He wanted to make a good impression because, as it turned out, he was the one on the faculty that wants to speak English and so wants to be my instant best friend. After meeting with ���� and the principal, vice principal and the English teacher, some of the faculty joined us for the obligatory Welcome-The-New-Teacher-To-The-Staff-And-Get-Drunk Party. The usual ���� was eaten, Mr. Heavy Drinker gave proof of his right to his nickname and a generally fine time was had by all. It turns out that ���� is the Head Teacher at the middle school—Mr. Heavy Drinker calls him ��Gang Boss�� to general hilarity. [This means gangster boss in Konglish.] He��s 49 again this year and is covering both bases: his daughter is studying Chinese in China and his son is studying English in Kentucky.

The vice principal and Mr. Heavy Drinker were juiced up and asking for ���� [e-cha, second place/second round of drinking] but I had another party to go to the next night, so turned down the opportunity to listen to drunks singing at the singing room.

���� had been appointed designated driver to get me home. All well and good. Vice principal crawls in the back seat and before we get out of the parking lot, his film is cut. I get in and ride shot gun and ���� gets behind the wheel. He looks down at the gear shift and begins reading out loud��P��R ��N��D. My confidence in ���� begins to evaporate. It takes him two hands to get my automatic into reverse. We start putt-putting down the road��at 40kph. It��s 8:00 on a Thursday. We��re about a thousand miles out in the country and there isn��t another car on the road. (Country people go to bed early.) I��m torn between thinking ��Let��s speed up a little and get this thing over with�� and ��It��s probably good he��s only going 40. There will be less damage when he crashes my car.�� Twenty long minutes later we pull off the highway into my apartment complex, behind two other cars. They take the last two parking spaces in the complex. Arg! As I said, country people go home early. Thank you, ���� for driving soooo slowly. For the first time since I��ve lived in this complex my car will have to sit out on the highway, 5 minutes or more away from my door. Anyway, we get the vice principal��s film spliced long enough to get him out of my car and into another teacher��s car and off they all go—but not before I said, ��Thank you and ����, too!��

I wake up late Friday morning and look out the window. The heaviest fog of the year. Not good driving conditions. I hurry up and take a shower and throw on some clothes. Go to the kitchen table to the clean sock pile. (You kind of forgot about the socks, hadn��t you?) None of the first three socks I pulled out of the pile match. This is a crisis. An ugly sock crisis. In this Land of Required Slippers At School, matching socks are a necessity. Faithful readers of Dave��s know from last year��s ��advice to newbies�� thread that once upon a time I threw away all my socks and bought all the same color and all the same brand so that all my socks matched. Life is too short to waste time matching socks and especially that day because ���� had driven so slowly that my car was an extra 5 minutes+ away and then there was the fog. Thank you again, ����! Matching socks when I'm running late is not on my schedule.

Where did these mismatched socks come from? People give me socks for presents. Socks for Teachers Day; socks for end-of-class presents; socks for Christmas and birthday presents; socks because-I-like-you presents. I don��t know why people look at Ya-ta Boy and think, ��Socks!�� It��s a mystery to me. Why don't people look at me and say, "Hmmm...Ya-ta Boy. Stocks and bonds, a perfect match"? Anyway, my system of all matching socks has been destroyed and it��s time to take action.

Would anyone here like three pairs of The Hunt black socks? How about 2 pairs of BYG black socks? There are a couple of pairs of another brand, with a red and blue symbol, but I don��t know the brand name. I��m not the tightwad some are so I won��t ask for money, but I��m not so generous that I will pay shipping. Drop me a PM (no need to embarrass yourself by asking for free used socks in public) with your address and I��ll send you my bank account number so you can pay shipping. Let me know how many of the 7 pairs (and which brands) you want. Consider tomorrow an Adopt a Sock day and take these useless pairs of socks off my hands before I throw them away.

[Apple Scruff]

You are boring.

[semphoon]

Go home little girl.

[Apple Scruff]

Nah.

[Yesterday]

Ya-ta boy - I am no socialite - but I am beginning to feel sorry for you - you need a friend - to keep you company in the country....

(maybe if they're scarce of females out there - try a pet)....

[Ya-ta Boy]

There is no plot summary test and you are no longer in high school. If you don't like what I post, feel very free to skip them.

[sojukettle]

I liked it!

[ilovebdt]

Socks are strange things. Whichever socks you put in the wash, you always end up with less socks than you put in in the first place.

Mad world

Ilovebdt

[Demophobe]

The thread title is misleading.

Coles notes version: "Matching socks when I'm running late is not on my schedule."

[Yu_Bum_suk]

We have a math teacher named Suk-yu. He's right chuffed that I can always remember his full name and don't just call him Mr Kim / Park / Lee like I do with most of the other teachers.

[seattlespew]

*.*

[krats1976]

Ah Ya-ta... thanks for giving me a little giggle in the afternoon.




As for sock... until I moved to Korea I really only owned 2 types of socks: white athletic socks from Wal-mart & nylons.

As evidence of how Korea has corrupted me (in addition to the appearance of pink in my wardrobe and the fact that I actually own a blow dryer), I now own at least 3 different designs of socks in multiple hues.

What next???

[Demonicat]

funny thing. When I got to this country I tried repeatedly to buy socks(as my cat at the time had a fetish for eating them). The thing is with my big ol' rabbit feat (US13 Korean 305), socks were always very tiny, too short for the most part. One day, I'm bopping along listening to the ipod, drunk, when I come upon my solution. Yes, that's right, the knee-highs. Now, I have a full collection of knee high socks (which are just above mid calf really), in every possible shade and hue. That, friends, is my sock solution.

[tacon101]

i always thought 'the sock problem' was having them eaten by the dryer...alas there are few dryers in korea.

my question is who the hell cares about matching socks?