there's lots of interesting stuff in Athens. the "fuck pao rouph" graffitti for example. who's pao rouph? i don't know but it doesnt matter fuck pao rouph. go drinking in gazi, that's interesting too (if you're using lonely planet--greece, they changed the name of the metro station @ gazi from votanikos to kerameikos)
the acropolis on the other hand, as i was starting to say earlier, i'm not as into. it's kinda hard to explain why, and really i have no obligation to try but ill give it a shot anyway.
so you're finished witht the theater, you head further up the hill through a gate. its called the beuele gate. and its made of stone, thats about it. nothing especially impressed me about this gate. now through here is the temple of athena nike, which you pass through on the way to the parthenon. it's kinda built into the side of the hill itself, but there isn't too much going on here either. in fact i didn't even realize that this was the temple of athena (nike) until i saw the little plaque on my way out. fail, maybe on my part, maybe not? well through the wrecked temple of a-n, the parthenon is 100 feet in front of you.
now as i said before, the parthenon is visible almost anywhere you go in athens, it's just something that's always there, it's just part of athens life i'm sure. when i was walking around other places in athens, i took a ton of pictures of it from the courtyards in omonia square, syntagma, monastiraki, it looks different from each place. but the pictures don't do it justice, and i don't think it's my camera to blame either. i just don't think i captured the _______(i don't know exactly what word) of the way it looks from a distance, especially not at night when it's lit up. i thought it was really cool on the distant hill, looming above the city, which is quite modern except for the big fucking white thing that you can see wherever you go. basically what im getting at is that it looks way cooler from far away now why is that? well when you're standing in omonia square, the parthenon looks all imposing and mysterious and such, situated the way it is above the city, but when you get up to it, well, it's just another of the ancient wrecked buildings, sorry, no mystery here.
you can't get right up to it, because it's blocked off by rails and in one section, a whole bunch of felled rubble and other shit. the ancient columns are held up by a series of ancient scaffolding and ancient construction cranes. oh wait a minute no. apparently you used to be able to walk through this place, but i guess everyone who visited here was a dirty filthy pig because their body oils and whatnot started to erode everything. of course all the cars you see/hear/smell around athens that wouldnt have a snowballs chance in hell of passing an e-check in the states have something to do with it as well. most of the artwork that was on the top of this thing has been taken down and either moved into the acropolis museum or stolen by the british some time ago (who won't give it back), so there's not much left to the parthenon but the blank pillars. to be brutally honest, i think it wouldve been cooler to see the huge cannon that the turks put here when they occupied greece, but i bet a greek would be pretty honked to see that be preserved and put on display. they're not the biggest fans of turkia.
when you make the little circle around the parthenon, there's another temple thing up here called the erection, which was ok, as it still has some statues there but the plexiglass-esque stuff they put in here kind of ruins the effect. and no it's not really called the erection, but thats a fuckload easier for me to pronounce than erechteion.
if i ever come back to athens, i think i'll skip the a-krop. if you're into the history of it and whatnot then by all means, go see it. thailand is first on my re-visit list, so it may be some time before i come back here, if ever, by which point it may have crumbled some more perhaps? maybe by the end of my life the parthenon will be a pile of fallen rocks, in which case i'd make an effort to show up and yell at all the young punks that i saw it when it was still standing. i imagine they'd ignore my story and mock my oldness with that damn slang of theirs that i can't understand. i'd turn around then, and as i'm shakily making my way down the hill on foot (because personal jetpacks scared and confused me ever since they were released in 2058),i'd curse pao rouph and the foolishness of the future's youth and think back to the day in 2009 i stepped out of monastiraki station into the courtyard and happened to look up, when i saw the parthenon in the distance for the first time, all lit up in the darkness above the city of athens and said to no one in particular, "now that's fucking cool"
then i'd slip on the marble steps and die.
--guy who writes this
my karma ran over your dogma
2009. 8. 29.
2009. 8. 28.
what do you know about stuff?
Here's a short culture quiz that we did in class this week that i found pretty interesting. just answer true or false for each one, scroll down for the answers.
1.) if i were doing business in china and was asked about taiwan, i would say 'it's a country i have never visited.'
2.) if i were having a meal with some malay business colleagues in kuala lumpur, i would only pick up food with my right hand
3.) if i asked a japanese businessman to do something and he said 'it's a little difficult' i would continue trying to persuade him to agree
4.) if i were invited to a british person's home at 8 p.m. for dinner, it would be ok if i were 15 minutes late
5.) if i were doing business in saudi arabia, i would not speak arabic unless i could speak it properly
6.) if i were in oman, i would not start talking about business until after the second cup of coffee
we didn't do an entire session on this, just took this short little quiz. i found it interesting though, and i definitely didn't know how to answer the questions about the muslim countries. the whole point of this discussion was that depending on where you're teaching you could seriously offend someone without realizing it, and as such should try to learn what you can about whatever country you happen to be going to. well i would agree with this, and thinking about the majority of foreign teachers i saw in korea (charlie brown and team awesome i'm not talking about you if you happen to be reading this), i wish that more of us way-gook-ins would respect the local culture and customs more. but hey i can't say i was never guilty of being offensive in korea myself over the course of a year. THAT's not important though, let's just say that this is something for all EFL teachers travelling the world to think about. quiz answers below
1.) false--mainland chinese won't like it if you refer to taiwan as another country
2.) true--muslims eat with the right hand, the left is used for wipin your ass
3.) false--this is how a polite japanese person would say no (saying no directly is rude in japan)
4.) false--i shouldn't need to explain this one
5.) true--apparently, if you can say hello or some other short phrases in arabic, saudis think that's great. but beyond that, if you don't speak arabic, they'll be pissed about you butchering their language, so speak english.
6.) true--you're supposed to have some general chit-chat and small talk before getting down to business in oman, as well as turkey and egypt apparently. not waiting for the coffee is RUDE
--guy who writes this
my karma ran over your dogma
1.) if i were doing business in china and was asked about taiwan, i would say 'it's a country i have never visited.'
2.) if i were having a meal with some malay business colleagues in kuala lumpur, i would only pick up food with my right hand
3.) if i asked a japanese businessman to do something and he said 'it's a little difficult' i would continue trying to persuade him to agree
4.) if i were invited to a british person's home at 8 p.m. for dinner, it would be ok if i were 15 minutes late
5.) if i were doing business in saudi arabia, i would not speak arabic unless i could speak it properly
6.) if i were in oman, i would not start talking about business until after the second cup of coffee
we didn't do an entire session on this, just took this short little quiz. i found it interesting though, and i definitely didn't know how to answer the questions about the muslim countries. the whole point of this discussion was that depending on where you're teaching you could seriously offend someone without realizing it, and as such should try to learn what you can about whatever country you happen to be going to. well i would agree with this, and thinking about the majority of foreign teachers i saw in korea (charlie brown and team awesome i'm not talking about you if you happen to be reading this), i wish that more of us way-gook-ins would respect the local culture and customs more. but hey i can't say i was never guilty of being offensive in korea myself over the course of a year. THAT's not important though, let's just say that this is something for all EFL teachers travelling the world to think about. quiz answers below
1.) false--mainland chinese won't like it if you refer to taiwan as another country
2.) true--muslims eat with the right hand, the left is used for wipin your ass
3.) false--this is how a polite japanese person would say no (saying no directly is rude in japan)
4.) false--i shouldn't need to explain this one
5.) true--apparently, if you can say hello or some other short phrases in arabic, saudis think that's great. but beyond that, if you don't speak arabic, they'll be pissed about you butchering their language, so speak english.
6.) true--you're supposed to have some general chit-chat and small talk before getting down to business in oman, as well as turkey and egypt apparently. not waiting for the coffee is RUDE
--guy who writes this
my karma ran over your dogma
terminal acropolitis
When something fails to meet your expectations, do you ever feel kinda guilty about it, like maybe there's something wrong with YOU? each time i've gone to athens, i could see the acropolis from almost anywhere i went in the city, which i thought was pretty cool. it's like the whole town is under that thing's shadow. i finally visited the acropolis this weekend, and when people asked me what it was like, all i could say was 'meh.'
now i could tell you all kinds of shit about Japanese history, but everything i know about greece comes from the movie 300, directed by zack snyder, starring gerard butler, and a CGI elephant. 300: "Feel the wrath...in IMAX!" Lonely planet--Greece (btw lonely planet--south korea is pure shitsauce printed on crap paper, if youre going there try another guidebook. sorry tangent.) said that the acropolis is the most important site in western history, and that "the sight of the parthenon never fails to lift sagging spirits." gay. anyways, i was a little confused by this because i thought the acropolis & parthenon were the same thing, but as it turns out akropoli refers to the hill that the parthenon is on.
so i buy my ticket and start walking up the hill. it's not a tough climb but wear shoes rather than sandals because walking on marble is slippery, which i learned the hard way, twice. ANYWAY i can't deny that some of the shit around here is pretty cool. there's an old theater that you can climb around in, and it's huge. you can sit in one of the seats or go into the little flat stage section and it's kinda neat because most likely, someone was doing the exact same thing 2000+ years ago. neat. there's also a cave in the side of the hill where they allegedly found a really early christian church/temple to pan (c'mon, it's gotta be one or the other and it shouldn't be too hard to figure out guys). i say allegedly because i didnt see it with my own eyes. you can't go inside.
this is kindofa recurring theme at the acropolis. you can walk around, look at the ruined stuff or the site where ruined stuff used to be but they moved it, say 'that's nice' and take your pictures before moving on to the next thing. but you can't actually go in anything, with the exception of the theater on the low part of the hill. well normally i have no problem with that, after all, you can't go into the Kinkaku-ji (OR the Ginkaku-ji) in Kyoto, the Grand Palace in Bangkok, the great pyramids (i'm assuming)...the list could go on i'm sure. but it just feels cool to be at those places, even seeing them from the outside, although i haven't seen the pyramids yet (i hope to soon). is this because i'm sufficiently boned up on the history of these places, and am actually interested in what may have happened there, years ago? see my problem was, i didn't get that cool feeling just from being at the acropolis. i wouldve liked it alot more if i couldve gone inside these things. i felt like i was looking at rocks, really. not especially interesting rocks but goddamn, ask anybody and they'll definitely say you better be impressed because a) this stuff is more than like, 100 years old or something and b) it was hard to make something like this without cranes and shit. OK, i can respect that last part. give yourselves a pat on the back, prisoners and slave laborers. as time went on, some prisoners were jewish OMG THAT WAS RACISIMZ!!!!
so turn away from the theater and stuff and head up towards the big gate and the temple of athena nike
I WILL FINISH THIS LATER.... (hopefully with pictures)
--guy who writes this
my karma ran over your dogma
now i could tell you all kinds of shit about Japanese history, but everything i know about greece comes from the movie 300, directed by zack snyder, starring gerard butler, and a CGI elephant. 300: "Feel the wrath...in IMAX!" Lonely planet--Greece (btw lonely planet--south korea is pure shitsauce printed on crap paper, if youre going there try another guidebook. sorry tangent.) said that the acropolis is the most important site in western history, and that "the sight of the parthenon never fails to lift sagging spirits." gay. anyways, i was a little confused by this because i thought the acropolis & parthenon were the same thing, but as it turns out akropoli refers to the hill that the parthenon is on.
so i buy my ticket and start walking up the hill. it's not a tough climb but wear shoes rather than sandals because walking on marble is slippery, which i learned the hard way, twice. ANYWAY i can't deny that some of the shit around here is pretty cool. there's an old theater that you can climb around in, and it's huge. you can sit in one of the seats or go into the little flat stage section and it's kinda neat because most likely, someone was doing the exact same thing 2000+ years ago. neat. there's also a cave in the side of the hill where they allegedly found a really early christian church/temple to pan (c'mon, it's gotta be one or the other and it shouldn't be too hard to figure out guys). i say allegedly because i didnt see it with my own eyes. you can't go inside.
this is kindofa recurring theme at the acropolis. you can walk around, look at the ruined stuff or the site where ruined stuff used to be but they moved it, say 'that's nice' and take your pictures before moving on to the next thing. but you can't actually go in anything, with the exception of the theater on the low part of the hill. well normally i have no problem with that, after all, you can't go into the Kinkaku-ji (OR the Ginkaku-ji) in Kyoto, the Grand Palace in Bangkok, the great pyramids (i'm assuming)...the list could go on i'm sure. but it just feels cool to be at those places, even seeing them from the outside, although i haven't seen the pyramids yet (i hope to soon). is this because i'm sufficiently boned up on the history of these places, and am actually interested in what may have happened there, years ago? see my problem was, i didn't get that cool feeling just from being at the acropolis. i wouldve liked it alot more if i couldve gone inside these things. i felt like i was looking at rocks, really. not especially interesting rocks but goddamn, ask anybody and they'll definitely say you better be impressed because a) this stuff is more than like, 100 years old or something and b) it was hard to make something like this without cranes and shit. OK, i can respect that last part. give yourselves a pat on the back, prisoners and slave laborers. as time went on, some prisoners were jewish OMG THAT WAS RACISIMZ!!!!
so turn away from the theater and stuff and head up towards the big gate and the temple of athena nike
I WILL FINISH THIS LATER.... (hopefully with pictures)
--guy who writes this
my karma ran over your dogma
2009. 8. 26.
can i haz job?
so, lately what's been on everyone's mind here at the TEFL institute has been job hunting. the course ends in a a little over a week, and as of yet no one has a job, although some have gotten offers. i haven't got any offers yet, which is shitty, shitty supreme even. we're now in the 3rd week of the course, and everyone's stressing about this, although some are stressing about it more than others of course. everyone seems to have a plan though. some want to bum around europe for awhile, waiting for something to come up. i wish i could do something like that, but if i cant find a job in the next 1 1/2 weeks, i'll be on a plane back to cleveland, head hanging low in defeat. maybe i'll "miss" my flight from amsterdam to detroit and hang around at the airport bar for a year, cleaning the place up for money.
in my mind the whole EFL job hunting process is as painful as eating shitsauce on rice. first you go to some EFL teaching job website, and there's a million of them out there. seriously, you can upload your resume to over 20 websites, but lemme tell you right now that more than a couple of them are pure shitsauce, because their "jobs" require you to pay $200 application processing fees and other suspicious things. and my inbox is DROWNING in the daily jobs newsletter from all these sites, most of which are giving the same jobs as the other sites. now you may be thinking, "well, shit, sounds like getting a job should be fucking easy with all that shit in your inbox, stupid." and i can see how you would think that. but did you know that 100's of people are applying to all the jobs that you're applying to?? this means that every time you click that nifty "Instapply" button, there is someone else more experienced, more British, better looking, better educated, with certifications from hell to breakfast clicking the exact same thing. the whole thing just feels futile, especially when the rejections start filling your inbox.
the more and more the rejection emails roll in, the more i think that there's only one choice left that makes sense--south korea. and that's not a decision i would make lightly, having previously lived in the "land of the morning calm" (anyone who'se been there can tell you that name is a misnomer) for a year. maybe this time i'll try working in busan SK, because then i can take the boat over to fukuoka and clean toilets for a living.
the rejection emails though, lets talk about that for a minute. reading these everyday has been quite the cultural experience. each country's email has it's own particular flavor and reason for crushing your hopes and dreams. here are just a few of the places i've applied to and heard back from:
Czech Republic--"We are very sorry, but we want person with valid EU passport, but you do not have any EU passport so we are very sorry."
Greece--"Sir, as we have told you many times already, there are no more positions available on the Isle of Lesbos which, by the way, is a very different place than what you described in your cover letter."
Japan--"good luck in taiwan, south korea, china, russia, the fucking moon, or wherever else you get hired that isn't here."
Thailand--"THANKS FOR APPLYING US!! THERE IS NO JOB NOW BUT TRY AGAIN IN FUTUREZ BYE!"
Neptune--"We have received your application, however as our atmosphere is composed of hydrogen and helium, we feel that you may not be the right candidate for this position."
Turkey--"No."
Vietnam--"We tend to...prefer British teachers over Americans."
Ah well....looks like i better tell mom to get my room all squared away for me. maybe it won't be so bad though, i can bring home some tzatziki and assos tzigarras and pretend i'm still in europe.
...man i really wanted that job on neptune.....
--guy who writes this
my karma ran over your dogma
in my mind the whole EFL job hunting process is as painful as eating shitsauce on rice. first you go to some EFL teaching job website, and there's a million of them out there. seriously, you can upload your resume to over 20 websites, but lemme tell you right now that more than a couple of them are pure shitsauce, because their "jobs" require you to pay $200 application processing fees and other suspicious things. and my inbox is DROWNING in the daily jobs newsletter from all these sites, most of which are giving the same jobs as the other sites. now you may be thinking, "well, shit, sounds like getting a job should be fucking easy with all that shit in your inbox, stupid." and i can see how you would think that. but did you know that 100's of people are applying to all the jobs that you're applying to?? this means that every time you click that nifty "Instapply" button, there is someone else more experienced, more British, better looking, better educated, with certifications from hell to breakfast clicking the exact same thing. the whole thing just feels futile, especially when the rejections start filling your inbox.
the more and more the rejection emails roll in, the more i think that there's only one choice left that makes sense--south korea. and that's not a decision i would make lightly, having previously lived in the "land of the morning calm" (anyone who'se been there can tell you that name is a misnomer) for a year. maybe this time i'll try working in busan SK, because then i can take the boat over to fukuoka and clean toilets for a living.
the rejection emails though, lets talk about that for a minute. reading these everyday has been quite the cultural experience. each country's email has it's own particular flavor and reason for crushing your hopes and dreams. here are just a few of the places i've applied to and heard back from:
Czech Republic--"We are very sorry, but we want person with valid EU passport, but you do not have any EU passport so we are very sorry."
Greece--"Sir, as we have told you many times already, there are no more positions available on the Isle of Lesbos which, by the way, is a very different place than what you described in your cover letter."
Japan--"good luck in taiwan, south korea, china, russia, the fucking moon, or wherever else you get hired that isn't here."
Thailand--"THANKS FOR APPLYING US!! THERE IS NO JOB NOW BUT TRY AGAIN IN FUTUREZ BYE!"
Neptune--"We have received your application, however as our atmosphere is composed of hydrogen and helium, we feel that you may not be the right candidate for this position."
Turkey--"No."
Vietnam--"We tend to...prefer British teachers over Americans."
Ah well....looks like i better tell mom to get my room all squared away for me. maybe it won't be so bad though, i can bring home some tzatziki and assos tzigarras and pretend i'm still in europe.
...man i really wanted that job on neptune.....
--guy who writes this
my karma ran over your dogma
2009. 8. 25.
AMG!!! FERST POSST!!!
YIA SU means 'hi' in Greek. i'm real proud of myself for learning that, seeing as how i've only been in Greece for 3 weeks now. and what's even better is i think i must be pronouncing it just like a native speaker, because every time i say yia su to the guy selling cigarettes, he starts saying all kinds of shit in greek. i bet he's real disappointed when i point at myself and say, "english english." of course this just leads to another of his monologues in greek while i catch the pack of tzigarras (that's another word i learned) that he more or less throws at me. i think we have some kind of understanding though. maybe he'll take a picture with me?
it seems like ive been doing a good amount of travelling in the last year, so why not blog about it right? its better than taking the time to write emails! right? am i right? yeah. my latest stop, if you couldnt figure it out by now, is greece, which strangely goes by the name of ellas around these parts--how did that get mistranslated? ive been studying my nuts off learning about how to teach english since i got here in a place called corinth (korinthoss) and living in a cool little beach town called vrachati. and each weekend i go to athens for overpriced food and drinks and the chance to look at 2500+ year old half-finished buildings. man there's this one neigborhood on a hill called the acropolis...they should really scrape some cash together and finish building that stuff, it could be really nice.
"so how does greece stack up to the other places ive been?" is a question no one cares about that i asked to myself the other day. after 3 weeks in greece here's what i have to say about the place
Europe is fucking xpensive--changing currency into euros makes my genitals hurt
siestas--everything closes from 3-6 in the afternoon because people are tired from all the beers they drink at lunch. does anyone work in this country? yes, from 9am to noon.
food--greasy (greecey?), fattening, good. also: filo dough. also: tzatziki
animal services--stray dogs, stray cats, stray goats being looked after by stray dogs, stray southeast asiatic red pandas
Toilets--you can't flush ANY paper down the toilets here, unless you want the septic to back up into your home. you have to put the toilet paper in a little trashcan next to the toilet. isn't that crazy??
things to see--the busted up temple of (insert name here), really old rocks, the beach, trees and hills and vineyards and some moar rocks
attitude towards foreigners (as in you/me)--on Drew's Scale of Native Friendlitivity greece falls somewhere between "are you lost, friend?" and "get out of my country." ha just kidding ACTUALLY most greeks are friendly and accomodating. of course blah blah always exceptions blah blah blah people are people blah blah.
so basically greece has been great, although i've been busy studying TEFL. i would upload some pictures, but mostly what ive been doing is sitting in a classroom for 12 hours a day.
--guy who writes this
my karma ran over your dogma
it seems like ive been doing a good amount of travelling in the last year, so why not blog about it right? its better than taking the time to write emails! right? am i right? yeah. my latest stop, if you couldnt figure it out by now, is greece, which strangely goes by the name of ellas around these parts--how did that get mistranslated? ive been studying my nuts off learning about how to teach english since i got here in a place called corinth (korinthoss) and living in a cool little beach town called vrachati. and each weekend i go to athens for overpriced food and drinks and the chance to look at 2500+ year old half-finished buildings. man there's this one neigborhood on a hill called the acropolis...they should really scrape some cash together and finish building that stuff, it could be really nice.
"so how does greece stack up to the other places ive been?" is a question no one cares about that i asked to myself the other day. after 3 weeks in greece here's what i have to say about the place
Europe is fucking xpensive--changing currency into euros makes my genitals hurt
siestas--everything closes from 3-6 in the afternoon because people are tired from all the beers they drink at lunch. does anyone work in this country? yes, from 9am to noon.
food--greasy (greecey?), fattening, good. also: filo dough. also: tzatziki
animal services--stray dogs, stray cats, stray goats being looked after by stray dogs, stray southeast asiatic red pandas
Toilets--you can't flush ANY paper down the toilets here, unless you want the septic to back up into your home. you have to put the toilet paper in a little trashcan next to the toilet. isn't that crazy??
things to see--the busted up temple of (insert name here), really old rocks, the beach, trees and hills and vineyards and some moar rocks
attitude towards foreigners (as in you/me)--on Drew's Scale of Native Friendlitivity greece falls somewhere between "are you lost, friend?" and "get out of my country." ha just kidding ACTUALLY most greeks are friendly and accomodating. of course blah blah always exceptions blah blah blah people are people blah blah.
so basically greece has been great, although i've been busy studying TEFL. i would upload some pictures, but mostly what ive been doing is sitting in a classroom for 12 hours a day.
--guy who writes this
my karma ran over your dogma
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