livin' with seoul: the meeting

the last entry was all about ‘the medical.’ today’s entry is all about ‘the meeting,’ the latest total waste of time experience. actually, that’s proabbly a bit harsh. no, it is a bit harsh. i realise i’m probably loosing sight of the fact that these korean experiences are just that – experiences, & cool ones @ that... & they have got 2 be in some way, on some level, beneficial 2 me... i mean, how could they not be? anyway, i digress. meetings. ‘the meeting,’ 2 be specific. my job sees me sitting in on many of them ... meetings about schedules, meetings about teachers, meetings about issues... & of course meetings about meetings. becasue i’m always the lone native english speaker in the room, the meetings i attend – on average 6 a week – are either chaired by me or conducted in english 2 faciliate me. but not today. today’s meeting was such an experience that i decided 10 minutes into it that i was going 2 waste more of the companies time after the meeting telling my blog audience all about it. so here i am.

it’s all speculation on my part as 2 what was being said in the meeting... & that’s what makes it so much fun 2 report on. 2 me the 90 minute meeting was all about head nodding, sighs of agreement/disagreement, hand waving (but no pointing... it’s rude you see), scribbling in notepads, agitated stares when something serious was going down & forceful point making. @ times my curiosity as 2 what they may have been talking about was aroused thanks 2 the dropping into the conversation of english words that have no obvious translation into korean... words like ‘curriculum’, ‘schedule’, ‘elt’ (english language teacher), ‘kindergarten’ & ‘elementary.’ every so often the 5 koreans sitting around the table with me would notice me sitting there staring blindly into the distance... & they would give me a collective “we’re sorry dave” smile before getting back into it. & every so often there would be a silence, followed by lots of collective contemplating, obviously @ times when a concensious needed 2 be reached. other times the silence would be broken by someone coming up with an idea or opinion on the topic under discussion... normally just before everyone else piked in with their opinion on the opinion. sometimes the opinion thrown out there was collectivily welcomed by synchronised head nodding, scribbling in notepads & a chorus of "neigh"s (yes in korean). other times it was just more silence, agitated stares, uncomfortable body language & polite smiles of obvious disagreement, signs that everyone thought the opinion thrown out there was retarded. @ all other times it was more hand waving, more "mi-da"s, more scribbling in notepads, more "chiggim"s, more "umm"s, more shifting in chairs, more "ao"s, more gestures with pens, more blank stares & more "neigh"s.

i still don’t know what the meeting was about... or why i was actually there. i gotta assume the meeting got sidetracked... sort of went off on a tangent... & that the topics of relevance 2 me – the ones i was there 2 discuss – were simply forgotten about, lost somewhere in all the debate. whatever the reason i don’t really care. it was one of the strangest 90 minutes i've experienced & i just wish i could have captured a video of the banter... of the scene... for posterity reasons. but i guess that wouldn’t have been appropriate... or maybe it would have been just as appropriate as me being there in the first place.

'livin’ with seoul’ funny label/sign watch

‘Fresh sandwiches are great anywhere. Anytime and give you a variety of delicious to choose from’

- a convenience store sandwich label

‘livin' with seoul’ weather watch

i wish the weather would make its mind up. last week there was a double-digit change in the temperatures as it plummeted from 7/8 degrees to -5/-6 degrees. oh & it snowed 2. that’s normal for this time of year so everyone expected once the temperatures dropped that they would keep dropping (-10 to -15 is the typical dec-feb temperatures). but no. now the temperatures have gone back up to 4/5 degrees. wtf.

whoops!

i can’t believe this guy actually got up after his ‘altercation’ with the... the... the whatever it was got in his way. he didn't get up for long but he got up nonetheless... so kudos for that. nutted indeed.