The Cell Phone Debacle

                When I came to Korea, I didn’t have a cell phone and not having a cell phone was like going on summer vacation: at first, I couldn’t get used to it then I got used to it, and I started to enjoy it.  I had phantom vibrations for weeks and when I rushed an eager palm to my pocket I would remember, Oh wait…I don’t have a cell phone anymore.  For a time I was complacent and enjoyed the freedom from phone calls and text messages; but, like the closing of summer, that complacency was coming to an end.  Soon I was washing phone numbers on bar napkins that I would keep in my pocket and forget about, I was making new friends and unable to coordinate lunch…I was realizing how important a cell phone was going to be in Korea.  I dreaded the realization, but I knew: I needed a cell phone.
                One of the teachers I replaced gave me his pre-paid phone, and I wanted to put more money on it, but that was a stressful and unsuccessful pursuit.  No amount of times, with cash in hand, was I able to register the phone to my name at the cell phone store.  Sure, there was a language barrier between me and the guys behind the counter, but I was waving green ₩10,000 bills in the their face and giving unscrupulous stares—Just put the minutes on the phone and I’m outta here!  No more foreigner in your store, c’mon, do it!  I want to give you money—take my money—put the minutes on the phone.

                (NOTE: Foreigners in Korea have to use pre-paid phones, in general, because their visas don’t allow them to stay for more than a year and cell phone contracts are at least a year; more often than not, a couple years.  E2 visas limit the person to 12 ½ months; as a result, foreigners teaching English don’t often get cell phone contracts or credit cards.)

                Three failed attempts frustrated me and I felt cursed.  I was furious and shamed, so I asked a co-worker, Hank, to help me.  We went to a different shop (which was probably for the best because I left the original shop mumbling obscenities and ruthlessly starred at the employees any time I passed by) and the same problem persisted: they couldn’t put money on the phone because the last person who had the phone did not switch the phone to my name before they left—now the phone was useless.  (Currently, the same phone is a paper weight in my room.  It’s still useless.)  I knew that I would eventually get a phone, but until I had one I felt like I was the animal at the zoo: I could look out through the bars, but that was it.  I was totally restricted.

***

                There is an asterisk to this story because I wasn’t totally without a working cell phone…  At some point, as I battled with the staff at the cell phone store, a friend of mine, Denise, gave me her old cell phone.  It was a little nicer than the phone I had, but it was bright pink.  Hell no, I thought, I’m not about to start using a pink cell phone.  Denise reminded me that I could change the pink cover, but I decided to waste my time…

When I hit rock bottom of my cell phone withdrawal, I e-mailed Denise and got the pink cell phone working.  Actually, Denise did all the talking, I sat there looking stupid and defeated, but in the end I had a working cell phone.  Sure, it’s pink—it’s still pink, I should say, I haven’t changed the pink cover (I doubt I will)—but the phone works.  Every once in a while some jerk in a bar makes a comment and I say to them, “whatever, I’m not from around here, someone was nice to me and they gave me their old cell phone, I can live with pink”.  My students at the English academy laugh at me and ask if I’m gay.

 “I’m not gay,” I tell them, “I have many girls’ numbers in this phone,” at which point I defiantly close my phone and the cover twinkles with shining lights.

My dad told me once, “A car is for getting from point A to point B, that’s it,” and I apply the same logic to cell phones: “A cell phone is for making calls, that’s it.”  Whether it’s sparkly, manly, old, or expensive, all that matters is that I can make a phone call or send a text message.  All things considered, I can’t complain about my pink phone… except that my ringtone is still Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok”…yeah, I’m not gonna change that either.

Surviving Kompasu

                I’ve lived through earthquakes, college finals, soul-crushing food poisoning, respiratory infections,  asthma attacks, torrential thunder storms, turbulence on airplanes, severe drunken blackouts, the wrath of an angry woman and even the blighted drive from San Jose to Santa Cruz on Highway 17—but, until I came to Korea, I had never survived a typhoon…and, since I’m still writing this blog, I clearly survived typhoon Kompasu and can now safely add that disaster to the list of things I’ve survived.

                In early September, it was starting to cool in Korea: August had been unbearably hot and humid, so I was grateful for the cooling that followed.  However, one day, during a lunch break, I was sitting in a restaurant eating some buckwheat noodles when a downpour began and I, without an umbrella, was stunned.  I should have expected the chance of rain with such humid weather: I’d been to the East Coast and experienced flash showers.  Little did I know that this moisture in the air, evident in the sudden downpour, was a precursor to typhoon season.

                In the beginning of typhoon season, I moved into my apartment (which was closer to my school and a blessing compared to the love motel).  The apartment had a kitchen, a laundry room, a bathroom, and a bedroom with two huge windows.  There were no curtains, so my nude yoga was put on pause, but I liked having such big windows: they opened my room up and they served as a natural alarm clock, while the alternative—no windows—was a dismal prospect.  So I stayed clothed more often, opened my windows for fresh air, and September continued.

                One evening in September I was drifting to sleep and suddenly I heard fierce wind outside my window.  I got out of bed, opened the window, and saw my neighbors clothesline whip violently in the air.  Trash and leaves danced like ghosts in the night while the wind moaned at me.  I immediately closed my window, got into bed, and pulled the covers over my head.  I felt like one of the little pigs threatened by a vicious enemy outside and I prayed for my house NOT to get blown down.

                The next day at work I had to express my surprise at the wind to my co-workers: had anyone heard or felt that extreme wind last night—I mean, my god, I thought my windows were going to get blown in!  It felt like a hurricane or something.  “Well Billy, this is typhoon season…duh!” that was the response at work.  “And, oh yeah, by the way, there’s a typhoon, Kompasu [Japanese for the archaic compass used to draw circles] coming up through Japan…should be here by tomorrow.”  Squealing with fear, this little piggy ran all the way back to his apartment, hoping big bad Kompasu would not blow his home down.

                It was pouring rain the day Kompasu arrived.  I felt like one of those old ladies from Mary Poppins when I was walking home—honestly, I could have been blown away the winds were that strong.  Despite the rain and developing thunder there was an eerie calm before the storm—I know it’s cliché, but it was eerily calm.  I had dinner, I had electricity (the storm hadn’t blown it out,) so I figured the worst had passed and I got into bed.  That’s a typhoon, I thought incredulously, a bunch of rain, some thunder, and a strong breeze?  I’ve had bowel movements worse than that.  I closed my eyes and pulled the blankets over me thinking that the Korean typhoon was going to pass Suwon calmly.

                Always when I am sure of something though, my expectations are revealed to be unfounded:  the pitter-patter of the rain turned into jack hammering, the wind howled like a big bad wolf, and it huffed, puffed, and tried it’s hardest to blow my windows in.  The panes vibrated, my bathroom door quivered, and I was sure that the windows were going to explode.  I was unsure of this kind of weather—this is the kind of weather that kills people, I fretted, this kind of weather swallows people up and spits them out like a chicken bone.   In good Billy fashion, I imagined the most diabolical and menacing hurricane outside my window and then imagined it destroying my new home, shattering my curtain-less windows, and wrecking Suwon.  Kompasu had arrived and I had severely misjudged it.

                The wind persisted, the rain eventually let up though, and I rationalized that if the typhoon was going to be as bad as I was dreading than my school would have warned me.  The prospect of work the next day overwhelmed my inklings to worry so I put in some earplugs (because the wind was that loud) and went to bed.  I remember my last though being: well, if I’m going to die by a typhoon, might as well be relaxed because it’s unavoidable.

                My apartment was still standing the next day.  I prepared for work, went outside and then realized that Kompasu did have its way with Korea: In Suwon, large branches had been ripped from their trees (while there were some incidents of uprooted trees), glass windows were shattered, banners were stripped from their posts, and bits of refuse had been strewn throughout the city.  In Seoul, the damage was much worse and it had halted the city’s subways.  In general, the damage was severe in the countryside, and the clean up afterwards took weeks.

                Now on my list of things I’ve survived is ‘typhoon’.  I was scared during the typhoon, but compared to how scared I’ve been during other calamites I’ve lived through I would rank it underneath an earthquake and underneath an asthma attack—staying indoors diminishes most of the effects of a typhoon, while staying indoors doesn’t do anything for an earthquake or an asthma attack.  If an earthquake is like that huge rolling boulder from Raiders of the Lost Ark and an asthma attack is like snorkeling with a straw than the typhoon, Kompasu, was like the big bad wolf that couldn’t blow my apartment building down and decided to make a mess instead.

                Typhoon warning, folks?  No worries: Stay inside, put some earplugs in, and wait it out.

A Budget

                In college I never had a budget.  I checked my bank account online, regularly, and then once the window was closed I pulled money out of ATMS, swiped my gold card, and used my VISA with discretion.  I was young, dumb, and running on plastic; I never went broke, but there were certainly moments where I thought, damn, I’m going to be eating at home for the rest of this month.  Naturally, after that startling realization, I would walk to the grocery store—convinced I was only getting the essentials for a week or two of home eating—and, almost always, I left the grocery store with food that I would eventually throw away next week.  The broccoli would get soft and brown, the milk got thick and stinky, and I devolved into a “Dollar Menu Junkie”…  Currently the “Dollar Menu Junkie” has been rehabilitated (or is merely hibernating), but the risk of blowing all my money on delicious yet unhealthy food is still a threat in Korea. 

                During my first 2 months in Korea, August and September, I was eating out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Once I moved into my apartment I was able to keep fresh food so I cooked on my own more and labored to perfect the art of ramen.  But, having my own apartment with a fridge couldn’t curb those lunch trips to Lotteria or Egg Papa; I worked late and sometimes it was just easier to stop in at a local eatery (it’s called Happy Kimbob) and I’d let those two nice ajumma cook my ramen instead.  Plus, there was a whole new nightlife that I was getting used to: bars and clubs that needed exploration.  And it’s funny too, because beer is so cheap (soju is cheaper than water), but after a couple of beers, a couple of shots, a couple of hours—HOLY SH!T, how did this bill get so big?  I was going to bankrupt my Korean adventure before I’d been here for 3 months!  Otto and I brainstormed, we were in the same position, and we both realized that the simplest and most practical solution was a budget.

                After my conversation with Otto I started organizing columns and rows, setting up ‘sumproduct’ functions, and projected monthly budgets.  On one side of my budget, I projected what I was going to spend each month; in the middle of the budget, I kept track of how much money I had in all of my accounts (domestic and back in the US); and the largest section of my budget was dedicated to recording each purchase: I set up different micro-budgets like FOOD, DRY CLEANING, UPKEEP, and an ETC group.  (ETC is where I gather all the greasy receipts from my nights out.)  Everything was linked with different unique functions to calculate my micro-budgets, my monthly budget, and the total left on my South Korean debit account.  It took a while to get used to the budget, keeping receipts and writing down how much cheese ramen cost me for dinner, but it’s been a remarkable asset for me while I’ve been abroad.  I know when I’m spending like a New Jersey housewife and I know when my finances allow me an extra cuba libre. 

                If you are planning to go abroad than I recommend making a budget for yourself.  Often, when travelling, we don’t realize the value of the currency in our hand and we spend swiftly.  Maybe you’re like me and the money in your pocket burns a hole through your jeans and before you know it you’re down to half with what you started with—if that’s the case, start a budget.  Take an Excel class or just get ballsy and go for it (honestly, Excel isn’t that confusing and the internet is loaded with tutorials and FAQs).  Set a goal of how much you’ll spend and try not to go over, and if you do, it’s okay, just try harder next time and stay committed.  Have self-control and don’t let your money run you, run your money.  It’s never too late to start a budget and it’s sad to look back, broke, and think about how you could have used some financial advice, but now you have no finances to advise.  Whether you’re the “dollar menu junkie” or the Iron Chef of ramen, you owe it to yourself to be financially responsible…don’t go broke abroad…start a budget.