channeling marguerite duras

no, i haven't turned french. neither have i become an alcoholic. but ever since i got my copy of duras' The Lover (the les editions minuits version, with archival photos of her younger self wearing a fedora much like the one worn by the young girl in the novel), i've been obsessing over how to procure one for myself. that was two years ago. i finally got one recently while shopping at technomart with asmarani. the day before our field trip to nami island, we were supposed to buy just picnicky stuff but ended up buying sweaters and hats as well. no regrets; one of my best buys ever.

as you can see, i am starting learn the fine art of posing for the camera, also known as trying to look cute. been learning from a master for about a month now and i must say, i've made some progress. photos by siege using my casio 6 megapix digicam and bad fluorescent lighting courtesry of room 201, crimson house. taken april 13th. below you can see me and the hat in action at nami island. if you look very closely, you can spot a bit of nami island greenery between the hatband and that bit of dyed brown hair in the upper left corner of the photo below.


anyway, back to duras... seems she had a thing for younger men, too. when she was an old and ravaged writerly lush (around 60 or 70, thereabouts) she took a much younger man as a lover. he must've been a fan, an art student, i think, in his 20s or 30s. the age difference in that later relationship is as mind-boggling as the quasi-fictional one in The Lover. here in korea, it is customary to cause women pushing thirty a measure of anguish with the addition of one or two years to her real age, what they wittily call here "korean age." and so, even in this foreign city, i am forced to play the older woman because they count the months you spend in the womb and you have to grow one year older with everyone else at new year. quibbling over little details like that sucks.

the past week

still haven't edited/uploaded the recent pics. no time to write much either because i had to finish a paper last week and we went exploring a lot to make up for all the afternoons spent at home (yes, room 304 is starting to feel like home) because a certain person keeps taking long afternoon-to-evening naps, depriving me of a shopping/dinner/gimik buddy. so... some highlights from the past seven days:

monday the 17th -- explored the small streets branching out of chamsari-gil (what we call pedro gil) and found a cozy restaurant where i had my favorite albap (fish roe with rice & veggies in a sizzling pot) and S had some donkatsu thingy. dark like a pub but smells like kimchi. cheaper than our usual/favorite dinner places (kookdang on chamsari-gil, oici wine cafe, etc.). will write more about manang kookdang and the award-winning coffee of oici wine some other time.

wednesday the 19th -- went to immigration office after school to apply for alien ID. didn't eat lunch, subsisted on supermarket camembert, crackers, and a sushi rice triangle from ministop. after immigration, had overpriced watery jamaican blue mountain coffee at some cafe in hyundai department store where i also had a quasi-bruschetta with olives, roasted veggies and blushed tomatoes (!!!). i really miss having a kitchen. but i'm never going back to that place. sagwa talaga ng kape dito sa seoul, kahit sa starbucks.

thursday the 20th -- had lunch at a pakistani restaurant in itaewon near the mosque with my muslim friends (azri, cecep and asma) and kalinga the sri lankan cinematographer. i took videos of everyone singing songs from their countries (malaysia, indonesia, sri lanka) while we waited for the amazingly good food to arrive. it was sooo good! basmati rice! lamb curry! (yes, yes, i ate meat but it was halal so not so bad for me...) raita! biryani! really smooth lassi! not a whiff of kimchi anywhere! yay! after lunch we went to this international food store where i found cornik, alamang, bagoong, patis, indonesian noodles and frozen hopia baboy from eng bee tin. pinatulan ko yung cornik. hahaha.

friday the 21st -- good weather, quite sunny. went up to roof in between writing my paper. it took me 11 hours to finish. i started 2pm and finished at 1:30am.

saturday the 22nd -- watch dvd movie ("art of fighting") at seoul selection, a cool english-language bookstore/expat hangout in front of gyeongbokgung palace, which i have yet to visit. we then explored lovely insa-dong, a tourist trap, a street lined with art galleries, little shops that sell crafts, sweets, etc. lots of stalls on the sidewalks selling hats, jewelry, scarves, snacks, stationery, incense, etc. i bought a jar of citron tea (like marmalade, very lemony with zest, which you mix with hot or cold water), little sweets (six tiny squares of nut and seed brittle including pine nut, sesame, black sesame and i dunno what else), two halter tops from nepal and a scarf from india. that night, S and i watched an episode of desperate housewives on his laptop. it was a nice change to actually watch something in english.

sunday the 23rd -- went to myongdong cathedral with S and met another exiled pinoy, R, who teaches programming at DLSU and is here to study the gaming industry of korea. he's also part of ACPI. R specializes in artificial intelligence applied to gaming, and he plays the violin and the piano. it was fun experiencing the cultural phenomenon called Spring Sale at myongdong (a retail fashion district spitting distance from the cathedral) where most items had 30% to 70% discount. had to endure geektalk bonding between the two gamer boys i was with for a couple of hours because we had to stay indoors to avoid the freezing rain. that same night, we had this crazy idea of having a picnic dinner on the roof of our building. in 5 degree C weather!!! somehow, we enjoyed indonesian insta-noodles, pickled quail eggs from the convenience store, aligue rice, citron tea and indonesian fish kropek. i couldn't find edible plant-derived food at the convenience store save for packets of nasty looking kimchi.

monday the 24th -- after school ended, we went shopping at dongdaemun market. this is actually an area near the dongdaemun sports stadium full of buildings retailing clothes. we could say that we went there to practice our korean counting and haggling skills but i doubt if any of you would believe me. i never knew shopping for a guy could be so much fun, a bit of a power trip. we found a nice spring jacket, some shirts. we kept getting big discounts because the tinderas all thought S was really cute & looked like some japanese actor daw. asa pa. anyway, the resemblance to the japanese actor really paid off because when we saw a stall selling indian stuff, i found juties i really liked. these can retail for up to php 3,000 in manila. the original price for a pair was 45,000 won but we haggled like heck. in the end, we got the juties plus a bracelet and a pocket mirror for much much less than the original price of the juties alone. our total discount was 23,000 won (around 1,200 pesos). may gusto siguro yung tindera kay siege.

high windows*

my room is on the third floor of my building so this whole "high windows" concept is a bit of a stretch. still, i do like the view from my windows sometimes. above is not a window view but what i like to call "first sunlight." i had just moved into this room and after a week of bitterly cold weather, the sun came out. i spent the whole afternoon reading poetry in bed, enjoying the central heating and watching these squares of light make their slow way across my tiny closet of a room. these days, the weather is still bitterly cold (5 degrees C this morning!) but they've turned off the heating in both the dorm and our classroom. [insert string of expletives here.]

this was taken on that same sunny day (5th of april). i want to say that it's what i see when i wake up but that would be a huge lie. i had to look for a good angle from which to take the photo, a feat, given the tiny space that is my room. i ended up crouching at a height somewhere between the floor and edge of the bed. and it may sound strange to you in manila but in the three or so weeks i've been here in seoul, i've rarely seen the sky looking this blue. most of the time, it's grey or white, covered with a blanket of clouds.

last monday (17 april) was the coldest ever for us and we had to walk to school in freezing weather. as we were walking past the fountain of korea university, siege pointed up at the sky above the school. huge ominous clouds were gathered right above it, looking like they were beaten into submission by some Titan's gigantic hand. everything was eerily quiet and deathly cold. it felt like the end of the world. we wanted to take a photo but we didn't want to be late for class. we're such nerds here.

as i write this, it's 8.30 pm. i look out the window and see my reflected face staring back at me. in the distance, between the two buildings across this narrow street, i see the headlights of trucks flashing by as they speed over an elevated highway parallel to my street. and beyond that, there is a small red neon cross attached to the spire of a small church a neighborhood away. apart from the yellow glow of the streetlights below, it is the only bright object in my window, the only color out there in the cold.

* title stolen from Philip Larkin. despite the foul language at the beginning, the end of the poem comes close to how it feels when i pray. sort of an out of body experience--the same thing you feel when reading a really good book (recently, hwang ji-woo and wislawa szymborksa) or when you kiss someone you love for the very first time.

High Windows
Philip Larkin

When I see a couple of kids
And guess he's fucking her and she's
Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm,
I know this is paradise

Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives--
Bonds and gestures pushed to one side
Like an outdated combine harvester,
And everyone young going down the long slide

To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if
Anyone looked at me, forty years back,
And thought, That'll be the life;
No God any more, or sweating in the dark

About hell and that, or having to hide
What you think of the priest. He
And his lot will all go down the long slide
Like free bloody birds. And immediately

Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:
The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows
Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.

palm sunday at myongdong

we got up early and found the subway deserted. the only people there were elderly men in suits and old women dressed for church, some in traditional hanbok attire. while never really the happiest place in seoul, the subway seemed particularly cold that morning.

and as always, we were the only ones laughing there. i've never seen koreans joke around in public like we do at home. it was fun running on this moving platform at sindang station and not bumping into anyone. siege, as always, attracted stares from sleepy koreans. he claims this to be his first performance in seoul. such masks are quite common, to protect people from your yucky germs if you're sick. lots of people bought them recently because there was a yellow dust storm from china that week.

and here's the obligatory turista shot that proves, yes, i was there at myongdong cathedral for palm sunday. we had been told that english mass would be at 9am. when we entered the cathedral, it was mostly empty save for elderly koreans huddled in the pews against the morning chill. a nice old gentleman passed around little piney fronds in lieu of the palaspas we have at home. we ended up hearing mass in korean, with all the "-eyos" and the "-imnidas." very solemn. and they sang the same traditional protestant hymns i heard growing up at citadel, except with korean lyrics. we found out later that english mass is never said at the cathedral, only in this tiny little chapel in some building beside the old church. we caught the last 2 minutes of the english mass and saw a mostly foreign crowd siksikan and tayuan. it was sad to see how much othering goes on here, even in houses of God.

we had breakfast at mcdonalds somewhere in myongdong. greasy fish sandwiches in commemoration of holy week, seemingly fresh orange juice and yogurt with sago served in long paper packets. this is the view from the second floor. it seems filipinos go to all these familiar places. if there were a jollibee here, it would be open 24/7 i think.

myongdong doesn't look very nice in these pictures but it looked pretty good that day because of all the signs that screamed 70% discount on shoes and clothes. good thing we went there with wallets virtually empty because any cash we had would have been spent in 15 minutes or less. it's hard to hang out all the time with a guy as interested in fashion and grooming as you are.


it took a few shots to get this pose right. he's supposed to look homesick here, not gassy. in one shot he was chewing on his fingernails. not a good sight before or during or after breakfast. it turned out okay, i think. below is me and my fat face, enjoying the last bite of my fishy sandwich.

...

it's three a.m. in seoul and i can't sleep. a song by kath bloom ("come here") has been playing in my head since the bus trip to nami island last friday. it's from the before sunrise movie, i think. there's something about the song that gives me goosebumps. could be her voice, because the lyrics aren't exactly the most profound or eloquent or even syntactically sound. i keep telling myself it's just the cold. but i think it's something else.

There's wind that blows in from the north.
And it says that loving takes this course.
Come here.
Come here.

No, I'm not impossible to touch
I have never wanted you so much.
Come here.
Come here.

Have I never laid down by your side.
Baby, let's forget about this pride.
Come here.
Come here.

Well, I'm in no hurry.
Don't have to run away this time.
I know that you're timid.
But it's gonna be all right this time.

'shiyoyo' is my favorite korean word

it means 'breaktime', or more idiomatically: 'taking it easy'. when our sonsengnim (teacher) says it, i snap out of my early morning stupor, wipe the drool from my chin and run to the hwajangshil (toilet) to retouch my make-up. or i go to the vending machine for a cup of cheap nasty coffee (only 100 won = 5 pesos). but mostly i go and hang with the guys in my class who go out for a smoke outside the IFLS building. no, i don't smoke with them. it's just more fun there than staring at the grass growing outside our classroom window.

it's also less geeky than looking at our schedules and the club invitations (sports, drama, song, korean culture). kalinga from sri lanka, sunder from mongolia and tenzin from tibet/india being good students during one shiyoyo.

this is me and asma, photo taken by siege. it think my pants were falling down here and i had to hitch them up. or maybe i was scratching my butt. as you can see, to keep warm, i have to wear three layers of clothing (what igor calls my flag shirt, burgundy wool sweater, olive jacket from the black shop) and a silk scarf from tita daphne's trip to vietnam. yes, silk does keep you warm. its lovely sheen is just an added bonus. that's the grass growing quietly behind me.

cecep actually asked me to take this photo of him reading the paper. i have no idea why but, yes, he does look the distinguished gentleman from java here. one of the few times he's not puffing on a kretek. you also see here a tiny fraction of the rather manly profile of azri the sculptor/designer from malaysia. he looks very fetching in a sarong. lovely feet.

this is what we call the news team. yes, they're media people. phuong is a reporter chick from hanoi, vietnam. payara (or something to that effect) is a TV producer from mongolia. that big guy with the cheekbones is tugsu, also from mongolia. they're the first people to be ever late for class. too much shoju.

two engineers from vietnam, son and hung. they work for the same TV station as phuong. they look like engineers, no? i think exposure to certain algorithms marks you for life. the geekiness just never goes away. asma tells me she keeps catching hung staring at me during class. either he likes me (God help him) or he's mesmerized by the nasal drip i get when it gets terribly cold. you should hear me blow my nose in class.

BreakTime is also the name of a small cafe right outside our university. it's a lovely place to read and have coffee or hot chocolate on a warm spring day. like most places, they offer free broadband internet. they serve organic tea and coffee and play christian praise music is english. they also serve pretty little cakes topped with exquisitely cut fresh fruit. haven't tried those; too expensive.

these photos are from the first time all six asian writers invited by KLTI got together. the thai guys were a week or so late so they're still playing catch up with the hangeul lessons. binlah is apparently a very famous writer in thailand, and is the reason why i got to meet some very nice business students (aka taipans in the making). they needed to interview someone from thailand for some class project. i knew couple of thais so... i set up a meeting for them.

me, asma and cecep outside BreakTime. it's warmer inside of course but there was some kind of fashion shoot going on so we were forced to stay outside.

cecep looking very distinguished, with the lights of dongdaemun-gu in the background. he's like an indonesian vim nadera. lots of interesting allusions in his poetry. and he performs with a band! i got some of his MP3s. very trippy. some tracks have a kind of hobbit house/beerhouse feel to them.

siege pretending he's saying something smart or witty but is actually just posing for the photo. looks like a girl here. not his best side.

me trying to look pensive. photo taken by me. nice scarves, no? very warm too.

nagtatampisaw sa koryo de hakkyo

so for the 6 months that i'm here in seoul, i'll be studying korean language at the korea university in anam, in the northern part of seoul. it's considered the top private university in korea after seoul national university, much like the jesuit-run ateneo is the 2nd best university after UP naming mahal. i know my ateneo friends will hate me for saying that but the fact that they have to go study in UP for their graduate degrees says something. anyway... this is me at my new school.
photo taken by asma, one cold spring day in april. it opened in 1905 and used to be called boseon academy or something to that effect. now it's trying to be a global university so its institute of foreign language studies is getting a lot of PR. we took a walk around the campus a few days ago and we wandered into the LG-something building. it was unnervingly hi-tech, i almost cried for our poor little 3rd world UP. we were like, "this is a school?" it looked more like a space station. the building is considered one of the top ten learning facilities in the world. i wanted to take pictures but i didn't want to look like a tourist in me own school. ha. anyway, here, it looks kinda hogwartsy. except we learn hangeul instead of spells.

i realized quite recently that siege takes the best pictures of me. am still not sure how he does it but i look much much better in these recent photos, dontchathink? he just lets me squint at the sun and fiddle with my scarf and somehow he makes it all look good.

this is me cursing under my breath about the cold weather but the amazing siege managed to catch the "pu..." in punyeta and made it look cute. dirty little secret: i didn't bathe the morning this photo was taken. it was a saturday and we had just finished eating a really gross breakfast at some cafeteria. i had ordered some soymilk drink that tasted like the bottom of your fridge's vegetable tray after random greens had melded into a green gunky ooze at the bottom. i couldn't believe people here pay good money to drink something that tastes like liquid vegetable garbage. isn't soymilk supposed to taste like fresh yummy taho?

just to give you a slightly different perspective. lovely arc shapes in the foreground, hey? if you look really closely, that's me grimacing at the memory of what's digesting in my tummy.

once more: me at koryo de hakkyo. taken after a misty spring rain by asma.

this is not a bennetton ad

on our second friday here, we decided to accept the invitation of a nice christian organization (IVF) based at korea university.

they took us to "enjoy delicious korean food" at some small street branching out from chamsari-gil (our favorite street which siege & i call 'pedro gil'). the chick on the left is joowon, the group leader, who seems like a stepford wife in the making. am not making this up. she's always perky & there's a lot of steel in that little backbone of hers. the big communal dish is cooked at the table on a hot pan/griddle of sorts. you can order beef or chicken or squid (which they seem to like a lot) and it is, of course, spicy. the one flavor koreans seem to like. but i could be very wrong here.

this is kalinga, a cinematographer from sri lanka. we got lost on the subway recently and i found out that he works & studies in colombo but is originally from anuradhapura (!!!), which means nothing to most of you reading this. but the polymath will likely remember that place from ondaatje's running in the family. the chinese girl on the right is from some province in china. sorry but i've blocked her from my memory because she did something i still have nightmares about. call it culture shock.
siege and his chinese harem. note the sampaguita pictures pose of the middle girl. they're very friendly, i think, because they're engineering students. the whole V-sign thing that's big in north asia, i really don't get. it just looks strange to me.
siege and his korean harem after eating too much spicy food. i think the cold weather here compels people here to randomly make V-shapes with their fingers. or it could be a signal to the mother ship to please send some more kimchi.

this is us after dinner at a place called loveice. they just love ice cream here. especially in cold weather. we shared what looked like huge bowls of halo-halo, complete with nata de coco and red mung beans, but with swirls of softserve ice cream on top. they call em bingsu hereabouts. the guy in green is tenzin the tibetan filmmaker who lives in india. that's me looking a little freaked out by what the chinese girl in blue had done a few minutes before the photo was taken.

and now... a look at our sponsors

meet a few of the lovely people of the korea literature and translation institute (KLTI). they're the ones who are making my 6-month sojourn in korea possible because they provide the clams. and mucho clams they are, too, in comparison with what other pinoys here and ACPI participants are getting.

they treated us to lunch the day after the ACPI welcome party. this would be 31 march then. it was one of those KLTI/yea jin moments when we'd be asked to go somewhere or do something on really short notice. (of course, we don't mind. we get paid not to mind) in this case, i was awakened by asma at around 10am to tell me that yea jin and the KLTI driver would pick us up at 11am because The Boss wanted to meet us and treat us to lunch. we would also be oriented about our duties and obligations as writers invited by the KLTI to experience korean life and literature. more on that later.

the gentleman on the left is dr. chin hyung-joon, president of KLTI. he has a PhD in french literature and has a funny habit of lighting a cigarette, taking a couple of puffs, and killing it. and then lighting another one almost immediately. that lady beside dr. chin is dr. park hyeju. she's also a character. she manages the research team of KLTI. five minutes after we met her, she overheard us reading the poster for the seoul young writers festival that KLTI is also organizing. she apparently misheard us and said very loudly: "she's not that young!" --referring to the woman in the cubicle to which the poster was attached. matindi yata ang intra-office laitan sa KLTI.

they took us to a chinese restaurant and we were fed lauriat-style, except that instead of the big communal platters we're used to seeing in ma mon luk & other chinoy restos, we were each given individual tiny dishes full of tasty stuff. little dishes kept coming and coming and we kept eating and eating until we were all uber-busog. and then dr. chin looks politely at us and says, "okay, what would you like for your main dish?" i'm not making this up. parang joke, diba? but it really happened. if you analyze the smiles we have on this picture, you might detect up to 28% queasiness from all the food we had to cram into our mouths.

so here they are again, our lovely sponsors. they're amazing people because they have so many simultaneous projects and the results are often better than expected. yea jin, for example, is in charge of this whole writers residency exchange program that we're part of. and she's the only person handling the project. and she has other projects too. and she's only 24. she's really cool, krungers but cool. so, one more time... that's kim yeajin, chin hyung-joon and park hyeju. try saying all their names 5 times fast with your mouth full of kimchi. i dare you.

hello cafe!

it's the actual name of the cafe we went to wednesday last week, 05 april, right after we attended a welcome party of sorts for international students, thrown by ISF and IVF, two student christian organizations. we saw people eating pizza with their chopsticks, and witnessed young korean citizens participating in what we like to call the culture of cute. more on that some other time.


this is the green tea latte i ordered at hello cafe. it was too milky, couldn't taste any tea at all. more like green milk than anything. that red thing called Juicy Chew is a jello of sorts. drinks fiasco aside, hello cafe is a lovely place. family-run like many of the businesses in the small streets surrounding korea university. the decor is mainly a bright green. like martha stewart indulging a green tea fixation.


me, asma and siege. photo taken by me. aren't we just adorable? note also the green walls and whatnot behind us.



more metaphotography. more milky tea lattes. more enforced cuteness.


free sushi (kimbap in hangeul) from the nice christian students. try to ignore the above buffoonery from siege. it seems congenital with him.


me and my cute new LG flip phone. note the lime green color matches the walls and contrasts nicely with my red sweater (bought on sale at dongdaemun-gu market). we got our phones cheap but could've been cheaper. the people at the phone store were racist b*stards. excuse the language, please. it still makes me mad.


this is siege channeling james dean and marlon brando and that guy from F4. i've been telling him to smile with less of his gumline showing. this looks much better, hey? compare this photo with the ACPI filipiniana photo we have together and you'll see what i mean.

the first day of class

we were afraid of coming in late so we got there at a little past eight for a 9:00 am class. that's asma on the left and siege on the right.



we almost were late for class because we kept taking pictures of ourselves against various backdrops. here i try to pretend it's spring but it still feels chilly.



here siege is being his usual "silly" (asma's word) self, against a rather beautiful tree in front of the building where our classes are held, the institute for foreign language studies (IFLS). grabe talaga ang "othering" dito. which is why siege tries really hard to blend in. and he does. they always speak to him in korean, he soooo looks like a local.



more reasons why we're almost always late for class. kodakan galore, especially now that more and more trees are blooming every day. nothing special in this picture except that i look like an ass. not my best side.



the tree in front of our building, without any silly posing before or beside or under it. i think i botched this shot.



more pictures to follow. but i have to sleep now. gotta wake up early tomorrow to study for the weekly quiz. i could've done that instead of blogging but hey... you know how it is. diba janet?

what exactly is crimson house?

it's my dorm, actually. and according to material prepared by korea university's KLCC (korean language & culture) program at the institute of foreign language studies, crimson house is a kosiwon. it's a unique form of korean lodging comparable to an off-campus dormitory. each room has a desk, chair & bed. bath & laundry facilities are shared. rates average USD 200 to 500 monthly. usually no meal service, but those that do require added fees.


the sign tells you what facilities are found on each floor. laundry & cafe on 1st floor. men's rooms & bath & admin office on 2nd floor. computer room, women's rooms & bath on 3rd floor. seminar room, women's rooms & bath on 4th floor, guest room, men's rooms & bath on 5th floor. siege said the russian guy brought him to the rooftop which is a cool place daw. there's a grill & other stuff up there for when summer comes. i plan to do some reading & sunbathing there. wala kasing beach dito eh.


i got a corner room. even if my room feels smaller than the other broom closets where my friends live, at least i get twice the amount of sunlight that everyone else does. good enough for me.


as you can see, there's a small garage here with some technicolor garbage bins. we're supposed to segregate our trash but that doesn't always work out. i try but when i bring it all down to the garage, it's already crammed randomly & it can be very gross. to get into the building, we put a security card against some little machine thingy and push the door open. but it can be confusing sometimes because sometimes the door swings in, sometimes it swings out. cecep can usually be found smoking kreteks out here.

you belong to crimson house!!

this is room 304. it ain't much but for the next 6 months, it's home. when you enter the room, the first things you see are my bed and the curtains above it. it's not as bad as looks. so come on in...


you will then notice the other window on the left. if you're lucky, the sun will be out and the room will be flooded with sunlight. i always feel grateful for the toasty warmth of the room after the windchill that follows me everywhere the moment i step outside. like all my workspaces, the one below is already cluttered. that's my trash bag hanging on the upper left of the photo. my towels are draped on the swivel chair; the heat from the central heating dries them really quickly. just imagine what havoc that does on my already aging skin.


from my bed, you see the heating vent above my door and below that, the OMF calendar cousin A gave me, along with random talismans: tiny mounted japanese paper dolls from my japanese friend S, a favorite necklace from R, a necklace with tiny picture frame from my discipler R, a jade rabbit charm from P. that's my trash in the black bag hanging from a hook; i empty the contents every day into various bins in the garage for recycling & whatnot.


the top shelf is my garde-manger (snooty term for where i stash my food). i have barley tea, marks & spencer black tea from B, organic earl grey & green teas, barquillos with mint chocolate filling, microwave rice, occasional baked munchies from paris baguette (a chain like french baker or le coeur de france), leftover lemon booze from the corner ministop, sugarfree strawberry jam and a tiny jar of aligue. if you love me and know someone going to seoul, please send over some bottled gourmet tuyo and/or bangus and/or sardines and/or fish roe in olive oil and/or more crabfat. please?

below that, you see my bookshelf. that area is a mess now because i keep taking stuff out. more books stashed at the foot of my bed. and as you can see, i have no use for the cable TV that comes with the room; every channel is in korean. i basically get all my entertainment from my laptop (which i refuse to name), my palm (which sicko siege insists on calling mary), and the various people around me. with my dorm and my classroom looking like a bennetton ad come to life, who needs TV? i do love having free broadband. i think i'd go bonkers here without it.

the same way i'd go crazy without my Post-it (c) notes and my lip balm. the other day, siege was surprised to see me pull out three different lip balms from the pocket of my bag during one shiyoyo (break time) in class. i had to explain that the one in a tin is flavored with green tea and mint, and is used as a base. the other two that come in tubes are colored lip balms from burt's bees (got them at beauty bar). they're made from beeswax, mint and other good stuff, and come in shades of coffee and burgundy. i also had to explain that the burgundy lip balm, having a bluish undertone, is for my outfits that are predominantly in that color family. the coffee, being brownish, are for my more neutral or paler outfits. his reply: "and you think i'm weird???"

let me introduce you now to my overhead light source, the corner of my tiny closet and my smoke detector. i don't know how i can live without them. below are my storage space and the foot of my bed. in the 10 days i've been here, i've had to go on various shopping expeditions to get needed items i had no idea i needed, like those pink plastic bathroom slippers. i had totally forgotten that i'd be sharing a bathroom with people of various countries. best not to go into detail.


the basket you see on my bed is for carrying all the stuff i need when i go to the bathroom to wash my face, brush my teeth or take a shower. i got tired of dropping various embarrassing articles in the corridor so i went and bought what i think is a laundry basket from some convenience store somewhere (apparently their equivalent of our sari-sari store). now, having seen the inside of my room, please enjoy the view that greets me whenever i pull the curtains aside to let in the bit of sunlight that reaches this cold cold city. pretty, eh? heh heh.




nothing else to see, folks. it is a tiny room. i stashed my luggage under the workdesk and my bags in the drawers under my bed. toiletries and other unmentionables are stashed in a drawer and a compartment roughly the size of a mini-fridge, under the workdesk where a mini-fridge would be if this were a bigger, more expensive room. just like the one i had last week.