A few recipes

So the last update was more of a historical-military one. I don’t have too much time, but here are those recipes I have been promising. Later on today I plan to hit up the internet café so maybe I’ll get a chance to do more of a free write later.

To start: Alex and Jake’s Totally Awesome™ American Pan Fried Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients: One egg, the equivalent of a stick of butter, and a package of Betty Crocker cookie mix

Directions: Start by trying to guess how much a stick of butter is from a Kazakh butter bag. Don’t worry, this really isn’t such a big deal, since butter is bad for you anyway right? Go ahead and go with a bit less than is needed. The next step should be to mix the butter, egg, and mix, but since you’ve just gotten the butter cut out of the bag thingy, it’s still frozen. Get the bright idea of throwing it in the microwave for a bit. Take it out when you start to hear it sizzle (about 3-5 seconds). Then ignore the directions of the back of the bag, dump the back of cookie mix into a bowl. Then throw the still warm butter into the bowl and crack the egg and begin to mix.

Realize that hot butter+ chocolate chips does not go well and watch as the chips begin to melt and turn the mix brown. Decide what the hell and keep going. Get frustrated with how dry it still is and add some water. Mix until it looks like cookie dough. Give it a couple of tastes to make sure it is cookie dough (we want to be one hundred percent sure that somehow the bag wasn’t a dud or something). Realize then that you do not have an oven and debate on whether or not to save the mix, bring it to school and see if one of the students will make it for you or simply just eat the dough raw.

Come up with brilliant idea! Get a pan out, throw some oil into it and a spoon full of cookie dough. Try to keep the dough in the shape of a cookie. When it starts to bubble like a pancake, flip it over. Keep checking it and as the cookie slowly starts to turn black on the other side, take it out ASAP before you completely ruin it, you g-d idiot! Put it in a plate, apprehensively grab a spoon and split it with that that bumbler who almost burned it. Realize it is freaking amazing—warm like a fresh cookie, but still soft and gooey like cookie dough. Make another and enjoy! Then realize that what everyone says about American stuff being too sweet is true and get a stomach ache. Vow to never eat two cookie blobs again. Freeze leftovers for use later or just general snacking.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Variant:

Realize some of your mistakes from last time, be more careful with the molten butter, follow the directions on the back of the mix (slowly stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients) and follow same step as above. Try to cook it the same way, but realize that the oatmeal makes watching for bubbles difficult so just keep moving it around and flipping it. Take it out when it starts to get really brown on the outside. Eat it and realize that it’s even better than the other one because: A. It has oatmeal in it, which totally rocks and B. It’s crispy on the outside and gooey on the inside. Freeze the rest. Awesomeness™.

A last final homemade concoction: Alex and Jake’s Totally Awesome ™ Waterless Stew

Ingredients: Anything you have in the fridge.

Decide to use up a lot of the left over ingredients in a final stew. Check the fridge and see that you have some cabbage, potatoes, onions, three whole heads of garlic, two beers, some permini, some sausage, macaroni noodles, and these small things that are kind of like noodles but these tiny little round things. Feel bad that you didn’t go for a run in the morning and ask Jake if he’s all right to get it started while you run (in the rain). Come back and see that Jake’s almost done cutting up all the vegetables and that he’s already started boiling the beer. Make a roux for him and then help him add all the veggies. Realize you have run out of room in the pot. Keep cooking anyway and when final product is done, it should be too thick to be a soup, but too wet to be a pan fry. Enjoy!

I'll try and get another post later on this afternoon, maybe about the more mundane stuff as dad asked. Later all!

Gone to Hilo

Tommy’s gone on a whaling ship, Away to Hilo
Oh Tommy’s gone on a damn long trip
Tom’s Gone to Hilo
He never kissed his girl good bye,
Away to Hilo, he left her and he told her why;
Tom’s gone to Hilo
She’d robbed him blind and left him broke, Away to Hilo
He’d had enough, gave her the poke
Tom’s gone to Hilo
Oh Tommy’s gone, and he won’t come back
Tom’s gone to Hilo

I’m sitting here in the flat, after an evening of drinking on a Monday night. I started with a few swigs of Cognac, a mix of (very bad) wine, (flat) beer, vodka (God I hate the stuff), a bit more cognac, and some of that “Maxi Chai” Lemon tea garbage. The mix was actually really good before Jake suggested we add that “Maxi Chai”. I’m serious, something about the poor quality of the wine (tasted like grape juice with a shot of vodka aftertaste—probably what it was, it’s a Kazakh wine) and the flat beer gave it a bit of a wheaty-grape juice taste, with the vodka not being too strong for once. Adding the cognac just sweetened the whole shebang. After that we (Jake and I) mixed some diet coke with Finka Vodka, which really made that awful stuff bearable. The two of us spent the rest of the night sharing swigs of Cognac and smoking the cheap cigarillos we spent most of the earlier evening scrounging around town for. Can’t really say why we drank last night; just had an unbearable feeling of sadness on both of our accounts.
Jake’s a bit lovesick at the moment; he’s made his choice to pursue the girl here in Kazakhstan and now he’s worried of rejection, et al. and so forth. Also, he’s worried that something’ll go wrong with her transfer to PSU, which is a legitimate concern as you don’t see many Kazakhs walking around down town Pittsburg. My own melancholy is dramatically different as it’s the same old same old with me. Don’t know why, but I’m often very low. I read in a book somewhere that Winston Churchill called feelings like this his “Black Dog Days”. Now it’s been a long time since I read that and I might have missed the point, but it sure sounds accurate for me right now. It’s just the same old fear of the future that I always have and my own inner demons and other poetic type stuff. Not trying to be too depressing or open here, but just sometimes I just can’t see any good about myself and I have little hope that I’ll be able to withstand the challenges of LDAC and what the army will have in store with me.
Today’ll be an easy day though, so I’m not so worried. We’re watching Gettysburg because I’ve been doing a unit on the Civil War. Not sure if we’ll finish the movie today; probably can’t, so that’ll be good. Give us a little more time here. I’ve been really enjoying the Civil War section—we sang “Dixie”, “Battle Hymn of the Republic”, “The Bonnie Blue Flag”, and “The Battle Cry of Freedom”. God bless good ol’ Bobby Horton. Plan on singing a few more songs after we finish this movie; show the evolution of music throughout the war.
We’ve had a few interesting events happen since the last update. Recently, we’ve had some problems with the inner door not wanting to lock for us, nothing major, just a bit frustrating. However, on Friday after work, we discovered that the door would not unlock what-so-ever. We had to call the school, to get them to call our landlord, who took a while to show up and when he arrived he first just attempted to use our keys to unlock the door—as if we hadn’t try that. Eventually he got a hammer, chisel, screwdriver, and when to work on the door, busting the lock out and finally getting our inner door open. So now we can get in and out of our flat, at the expense of only have one door that locks.
Saturday night we had two of our students come over and I tried to make my favorite spaghetti meal. Unfortunately, that failed pretty spectacularly. I went with my mother’s advise of just buying cheap wine, which in U.S. dollars cost about $1.20, so I might have gone a little bit too cheap (if you’re wondered why we had wine in that mix above, here we are). Also, this country does not have any oregano. I mean none, what so ever. They hadn’t even heard of it, even when I looked it up in the dictionary (five of the dictionaries didn’t even have it as a word…) and the basil didn’t really taste correct either. Another problem was the lack of spicy Italian sausage, which would have given it some more flavor; that and the beef here (hamburger is what we used) kind of smells and tastes different than it does in the US.
The girls said the food was good but even if they were being honest it didn’t taste right. I was extremely disappointed in it and I promised that if they ever came to the U.S. we’d get it proper. I think though that’s probably the first home cooked meal I want—to make up for the dismal failure.
Sunday night one of our students and his friend showed up drunk on our door, but for some reason we decided it was a good idea to grab dinner at a café. Not a good plan…but we did it anyway. It probably was because he got us to take a few shots of Vodka when he arrived (he brought his own bottle). Getting there was an adventure, he was almost hit by a car, gave the driver the finger, the driver pulled over and started to get out of the car—luckily his friend (who spoke no English) defused the situation and we proceeded to outdoor café. Except he decided this place wasn’t good enough (this place has a bit of a history of tolerating drunks—one came up to us and started chatting with our female students when we had gone there once, before his friend dragged him away), so we went to a more upscale one—another mistake. Our friend kept confusing his friend and the wait staff by talking to them in English—sometimes we had to order for him. It was also compounded by the fact that he insisted that we have beer, but they would not bring him any. It was a scary night, I was always worried we’d be ejected from the restaurant due to his loudness, but we made it through all right.
Now that it is almost time for us to be leaving, I guess I should go ahead and start listing a few things I’ve noticed about Kazakhstan and its people. I’m going to try and do it like that “American Ways” book does it for Americans. Take the good and the bad, then look how they might be related and just accept it like that.
So the good, the bad, and the downright ugly:
Good: People here are extremely generous and hospitable. Whenever they invite a guest out, they pay for their guest and they take very good care of their guest. They’ll be sure to make sure their guest is safely home.
Bad: They won’t allow you to pay for yourself at all, no matter what. Whether it’s expensive or just petty, they don’t let you do that. Even if you’re being taken out by a group of 14-17 year olds. Or if it’s a group of girls. What’s worse, is this is a complete double standard—one of the students met me to take me to the bazaar, she paid for my bus ticket. However later that night after all the other students were leaving and we were trying to get her home, but the buses were supposed to have stopped at 2000 or 2100 (we couldn’t be sure). Being 2105, I had little hope that she’d find the bus there, so I offered to lend her the 500 tenge she would need to take the taxi (because she didn’t have any money on her for it) and she flatly refuses it. I tried everything, from assuring her that she could pay it back later, asking whether or not it was because I was a guy or a “guest”. Nothing, but a horrible double standard. Luckily, a bus was running late and at about 2120 she got on it and I could go home.
To add insult to injury, the last thing she said as she got onto the bus was “Are you sure you can find your way back home from here?” Such patronization…home was within sight of the bus stop. It’s like they think we’re made of stupid. This isn’t the only case of this kind of thinking—we have a student escort us to and from school because they’re afraid that “You’ll get lost”. Like we haven’t walked this way for the entire time we’ve been here. Or when we got off the bus yesterday, the student asked us if he needed to help us find our way home or if we could do it ourselves—again within sight of the stop.
This behavior is rather infuriating, but let’s look at it objectively: this is probably directly related to the hospitality of generosity of the people here. They probably feel that they have to do everything to make the guest feel comfortable and to keep the guest safe. It just so happens to offend the American sense of “independency” and “self-reliance” (whenever I hear that word I always imagine Sean Connery saying that from Indiana Jones III) then so be it. I’m over here, I’ve just got to bend to it, no matter how bad it tastes in my mouth.
The Ugly: Again, going to have to complain about body odor. Just can’t stand it. It ain’t everyone, but Christ there are some people that just make you gag here. Ain’t nothing I can do about that, but just go to live with it. Just ain’t easy boys and girls. Literally this morning, I was checking emails from Dr. Lee and a student just walked by, about 10 feet away into another room and it just hit me in the nose like a giant fist wrapped in a dirty diaper from a sewage plant that’s been held under a 500 pound sweaty man’s armpit.
Enough of that. Later all; by the way, this is my cell phone number here, if anyone wants to try it; I have no idea whether or not it’ll work. 877775431576. I think that’s it anyway, on my phone it says +77775431576, and I think the +=8 (or 87-not sure). For some reason our home phone just don’t work.

Coming from Kazakhstan Update Part II Including Photos

PHOTOS NOW ADDED

Coming To Kazakhstan: (teaching photo)

Finally I’m getting caught up on the details of our arrival to the K-stan. We arrived that evening around 2130, but my phone didn’t work-too long not using it and so it had been deactivated. Luckily, Jake’s phone got some signal in Almaty (but never in Korea…) so we called Symbat, who was meeting us at the airport with his girlfriend and they got us to a flat the school had for us that evening. It was tough to get all our luggage to fit though-and damn heavy-but that’s partially the school’s fault since we had to bring all those darn books. Dinner that night was burgers, which was kind of funny—I guess they wanted to make us feel at home, not knowing that we had done our darndest to avoid them in Korea.

They weren’t too bad though, quite funny actually—in Kazakhstan they stack ‘em wrong. Go to McDonalds, Burger King, or even just the Dining Hall and look at your burger. It’ll be two pieces of bread, on the bottom you might have some mayonnaise or ketchup, then on top of that, the patty, some cheese, and your veggies—lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and pickles. Kazakhstan they do it completely opposite: on the bottom the lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers (not pickles) then the patty, no cheese, mayonnaise, and ketchup. After dinner, Jake and I cleaned up, but I think that made Alyona (Symbat’s girlfriend) uncomfortable, since we were guests and she’s a girl. In this country it seems that girls generally do all the work and I don’t mean like what women in America do—I mean literally all the work around the home. Alyona made dinner, breakfast, and lunch the next day and tried to do the entire cleanup herself, though at least for lunch we didn’t let her.

That night I got in touch with Leyla, Damy, and Victoria, the girls Jeff, Mark, and I had met last year in Almaty. They came by the next day and were really glad to see me again. I was pretty surprised at how excited they were. It was very good to see them and we had a lot of fun talking and taking photos. Alyona made permini (which is like ravioli, just boiled and eaten with sour cream or mayonnaise—most food here is eaten like that) for the five of us (Leyla, Damy, Victoria, Jake, and myself) and was going to clean up, but I wouldn’t allow her to do that—her and Symbat had left us alone with the Almatians and I didn’t think it was right for them to do that much stuff for my guests. But my high intentions were thwarted when the girls refused to let us do the work of cleaning dishes—women’s work in Kazakhstan and they thought it was too weird for guys to do it.

There’s some culture shock there for me—everyone is extremely hospitable and generous to guests, too much so. I hate being taken care of like that; it makes me feel uncomfortable. Yet, as Danny said to Peachy: “Different Cultures, Different Customs,” and I resolved to try and not make them uncomfortable by refusing their hospitality. That sounds really easy, but it isn’t. Americans (or at least me—I’m doing my best to not over generalize) are not comfortable with people waiting on them like this.

After lunch, I said goodbye to the girls and we hope to hang out a bit before I go back to Korea, but I can’t guarantee anything since I don’t know what Nailia will let me do. Then we headed onto the train and rode for the next eighteen hours to Semey. It was kind of warm on the train—AC isn’t so common here in Kazakhstan and the trains didn’t use it very long. We were lucky when we had it, which wasn’t for very long. The view was interesting, but pretty much standard flatlands and no trees. I spent most of my time shirtless in my bunk (above so the rest of the group didn’t have to look at my hairiness) getting my journal up-to-date, which took a long, long time to do.

We arrived in Semey the next day and were taken to our new flat by Valentina and Zarina, two teachers at our institute who help us out at the school. They showed us our flat and had stocked it with some sausage, bread, cheese, cucumbers, mayonnaise, and tomatoes. We’ve since learned that entire meals can consist only of these items. Many of our meal consist of these items; however, we’ve started to add ketchup to this combination. Turns out there are several kinds of ketchups over here (and types of mayonnaise, but we’re sticking to good old fashioned normal flavor for the time being on that). For the ketchups, I’m particularly fond of a brand called “Baltimore” (no idea why it’s called that, it is from Russia), but pretty much any hot pepper ketchup is good.

We started classes the next day and that hasn’t been easy. I’ve already complained a lot about high expectations from us and how difficult it is to teach, but I’ll just reiterate: I find it difficult to teach English to these people. I’m not sure how you make them talk—especially when some will talk, but others are too shy…just ain’t easy…

We spend a lot of time with the students however, and that is very good. Kazakh people (and I mean as in the nationality, not the ethnicity—you must be careful with that, people get a little offended) are extremely hospitable and kind, especially to guests, so they’re always taking care of us. I feel a little guilty actually, as they will pay for us when we go out, which makes me feel a little bad, because even though the cost of living is cheap, people aren’t paid that much (and not that often; learned it wasn’t uncommon for pay to be withheld for months sometimes) and it can’t be cheap to take us out so often. But different cultures, different customs…

Some of the events we’ve done with the students include going to a beach on the banks of the Irtysh river (the same river that the bloody Chicomms are diverting away in violation of international law, of course—who’s the imperialists now Hai-Xiao?) and having a barbecue, going to various museums and the zoo, hitting a local pizza joint and crashing for some Shashlik at a café nearby, going for a traditional Kazakh dinner at a local restaurant owned by one of our students’ family, and visiting the local military park—the location of the famed “Battle of Semey.”

This park is one of the reasons I enjoy being out here in Kazakhstan so much. Back in the US, they don’t have parks in the middle of a small city that’s just full of old tanks and personnel carriers. And you absolutely are not supposed to climb all over them and a have a great time like you’re nine years old playing army all over again. This place is great dad, you’d have loved it. Several T-64s, a T-34, a Katushya, a BRDM, BTR, a Ural truck, a BMP, a mine clearing vehicle…it’s just wonderful. And you can climb all over the equipment.

So I call it the battle of Semey, since you’ve got two Yanks and a crowd of their followers climbing all over the symbols of the Soviet Union and its military prowess. That day was a great victory for capitalism, freedom, apple pie, and America in general. However, the Red Army did get its licks in—whilst jumping off the BTR, my back pocket got caught on the symbol of Soviet Oppression and the dirty communists ripped my jeans a new one…literally. All is well, however, as one of the students has taken my jeans to sew ‘em up because they’ve got a sewing machine. I wanted to get some practice sewing again, since it’s been a long time since mom showed how to sew by hand and I haven’t had any causes to do so, but the student tells me I’d need a sewing machine to make it stick, so she had to take it.

I’m pretty content here. Life’s not exactly a picnic, but it isn’t too bad. Worst compliant is I’m very nervous about teaching, since our salary is tied to the number of pupils that we have, and it’s been hinted that some students felt very let down by our teaching experience and are not planning to sign up again for the next course. There is one spot of brightness for me however, because Dr. Lee told me that Nailia and the other teachers have been impressed by my effort and my classes and that she’d be extremely happy if I came back to teach the next year. I wish I could, but darn ROTC and the rest of my life.

To be honest, teaching isn’t that bad…and certainly I think that teachers in the US complain WAY TO MUCH. I’m getting by here with no training, no more than a rudimentary knowledge of the specifics of English, students who don’t speak the language as first one and are taking the class to learn it, I’ve had to work Saturdays, I work more hours than they do daily, and I’ve got to balance this whole deal with limited resources on everything. I’ve got exactly one pot, one pan, two regular sized plates, four tea plates, one serving bowl, two regular bowls, two ladles, two spatulas, two forks, two knives, four tea spoons, two serving spoons, one regular sized spoon that Jake stole from Korea, two sets of chopsticks (one a gift from Kyung-Hee University, one stolen by Jake as well), a microwave, and an electric stove with two burners. We don’t have an oven—so that kind of ruins mom’s brilliant idea of giving us those cookies and stuff since the school won’t let us use their ovens. There still might be a way around that; I’ve got to ask the students for help.

Teachers here in Kazakhstan have it much worse than any teacher in the US has it. They do more work, for less money, less prestige, have more responsibilities for their students, and they have to work in the summer term. If I ever hear an American teacher or a student studying to become a teacher complain (I’m remembering the folks on the trip to Russia and their constant griping about it) they’ll have no pity from me whatsoever.

I’m sure you’re all wondering about my status on facebook—yes it is true, I now have cavalry whiskers. It wasn’t an easy process; I decided to grow out all the facial hair first and then shave it after about a week, to make it easier to keep the distinction. Not that it was a mistake, but that’s tough. First its itchy, second—a beard just doesn’t look good coming in and I had to listen to basically every single young woman (and even the older ones) in this country tell me it looked bad and that I should shave it. However, I stood strong and finally cut the stuff off and went into cavalry whisker mode.

Not really sure what I’ll do about it now. The plan was just to go ahead and grow it all summer, but the backlash against growing facial hair was pretty strong—to the point where I decided just to cut the whiskers, get a few pictures and go back to clean shaven. However, reaction to the cavalry whiskers has been a little bit more different than I expected: Jake whom I expected on my side on this one is against it, but a lot of the students are telling me to go for it. Some say that people shouldn’t be afraid of being different (which sounds a lot like saying “Yeah, you look weird, but you should be able to do what you want”), some say that the look is good on me—kind of perfect for my personality: old fashioned. So, I’m not really sure how to take that, but my big problem is I kind of like how I look; yeah its goofy, but when I see myself in the mirror I really feel like I’m getting out there ready to battle the Zulu or head off to relieve Chinese Gordon.

So I think I’ll put it to a plebiscite and let the students decide…but it’s cool…even if I do look extremely goofy. Any thoughts from home?

PHOTOS OF THE CAVALRY WHISKERS!

And one of me teaching:

Update Part I

It’s been a busy couple of weeks here in Kazakhstan. I’m starting to get into a rhythm but it is a little bit slow going for me because we’re so busy and I’m always so tired. I’ve resolved to finally start forcing myself to exercise. I’m not feeling too bad about weight, because I don’t think we’re really eating too much, we’re always on our feet and feeling tired, and we walk to and from the institute everyday, which is a good 20-25 minutes each way. I’m just worried that I am losing my speed and maybe muscle strength, since I haven’t been doing too many pushups or sit ups (though I have done them infrequently since I got to Kazakhstan).

An average day for us begins at about 0630 in the morning for me and 0700 for Jake. Jake always needs more sleep. I suppose the rigors of a combination of JROTC, Drum and Bugle Corps, Boy Scouts, and ROTC has made me more impervious to a lack of sleep than him. Anyway, I take about 12 or so minutes on average in the shower and since I don’t need to shave that makes it even quicker for me. After Jake finally gets up and out of the shower, we make our breakfast. Usually something involving sliced cucumbers, tomatoes, sausage, bread, some mayonnaise and depending on what kind we have-ketchup. I’ve learned that here in Kazakhstan they have many, many types of ketchup that go good on almost anything. We’ve discovered an exceptionally good one, called “Baltimore,” which is actually from Russia and I’m not really sure why it is called that.

After Breakfast, we usually have some students meet us at about 0830 and walk with us over to the SSPI-which usually takes about 25 minutes or so. Generally three or four students meet us, but this week only one has met us-perhaps the novelty of Americans in Kazakhstan is wearing off? We begin to prepare for class once we arrive-usually writing our “Joke of the Day” on the board and picking vocab words and idioms for our quiz. Also, we give Valintina or Zarina the pages we want them to print off for class.

Class begins at 0930 and we usually have the students read the joke and explain to each other the humor in the joke. We ran out of jokes recently, which is OK, since some of the ones we had were pretty bad puns…Once we finish our joke, I usually have Jake start the vocab quiz-words picked out of the TOEFL book that Jake reads a sentence with and then we have them try to guess the word’s meaning from the context of the sentence. That usually takes a little while, because we have them start individually, then get into small groups, and then combine as a class to try to figure out the words’ meaning.

Once we finish that, I or Jake go over the idioms that Jake has usually chosen (because he thinks the ones I choose aren’t used anymore- “Ain’t just whistling Dixie” is not dead!). We try to have them use the words in sentences on their own sometimes, but that usually is very difficult to get them to use it correctly. When that is done, we sometimes play a game or come up with another activity to stall time until our first break. Games we have played include telephone, categories (students have to come up with something to fit the category or they are out ex. Famous Americans-Lincoln, Obama, JFK…), madlibs, and twenty questions. Our break is about ten minutes long, though sometimes the students take a little longer to get back into the class room, which is OK by us.

After that I’ll usually do something about history for about 15-20 minutes, a short lecture followed by a feedback attempt-asking them questions. This usually does not go over as well as I wish, because I’ll write the key terms-like “STAMP ACT” on the board, explain it, and then ask them what the “STAMP ACT” was, and get blank responses, prompting me to explain it all over again. I talked with Dr. Lee once he arrived and he suggested just going ahead and printing off the sections I want them to read and then using that for discussion later. I may try that, my only fear is how much paper we’ll use up and ink and we have two other teachers who help us in that regard, but I hate imposing on them because they have to teach their own classes as well, and our equipment for making more copies and such is not very good.

In the afternoon we split the groups up, I get the teacher group first and Jake gets the younger group before me. I usually open up with a proverb that I try to have them figure out and see if there are any Russian or Kazakh ones that are similar. I then usually do a history bit and I’ve been going over how to a presentation with these groups as well. We switch after about an hour and a half and I usually do the same basic lesson for the younger group. It is kind of difficult though, because I can’t always figure out a good thing to get discussions going-when I find something for one group it doesn’t necessarily (and most times doesn’t) do anything for the other group.

For example, I had a period two days ago where the teachers wanted to talk about Iraq and US policy and the military-I, of course, defended my country and my army. I thought it was funny because I really do see what Nailia was talking about when she said they had difficulty organizing thoughts for an argument. Often they would start talking about one thing, then switch to something completely different-one teacher was talking about her father’s experiences in WWII and how he never talked about it-then jumped into Abu Grahib… Another was asking why Saddam couldn’t have WMD in his own country and why it was our business to disarm him. I started to explain the way Americans felt in 2003 and how we believed he had them and was a threat-then I said-“We made a mistake, he didn’t have them, but with the evidence we had, how were we to think otherwise?” She said, since he didn’t have them, why were we still there. It never seems to occur to them that things change and the situation is very precarious now-WMDs may not have been found, but leaving Iraq anytime during the recent years would just make the country a much worse place and a greater danger than it was before.

Not to mention, I think from Russian propaganda (as Nailia calls it) they seem to think we’re the only ones there and have been-they were genuinely surprise to find that there were Australians, British, etc, in Iraq-then they tried to argue that they were just peace keepers-defining that as someone who is near the frontlines (what frontlines?) and keeps people from attacking other people (isn’t that what occupation forces are doing as well?). They also seem to think that all Iraqis are actively opposing us and fighting us and I’m not sure they are even aware that there is an Iraqi government and they seemed surprised to learn that there was an Iraqi military (they asked what the American army has been doing in Iraq for the last 5 years-and I said besides fighting insurgents, rebuilding the country and training the Iraqi defense forces-What?).

So this was a big discussion day-of most of the class vs. me (but I’m OK, I think I defended well and it was just hard to argue when they wouldn’t accept my facts-but they can’t really argue, not effectively yet. Almost afraid to change it). Expecting the next class to be the same, I braced myself, but instead we talked about stereotypes and Jews and gypsies. They accept stereotypes much more readily than we do. I mean, they flatly accept that some stereotypes are true-that all Jews are talented (why else would they have so many rich people and famous actors and directors). I did see a bit of more anti-Semitism though-we watched Glory and I asked why the quartermaster didn’t give them shoes, and one student said, “Because he’s a Jew.” Not sure how to respond to that.

But anyway, see how different groups like different subjects? I’m sorry I don’t have a complete update, but the internet hasn’t been good to me here (down most of the week) and I’ve been very busy. I’ll try to get another update next week.

Alex and Jake's Totally Awesome Kazakh Stew 2

Flour

1/8 Italian Bologna like sausage (Salami Moscovskaya would probably be better, so if you have it use it)

1 onion

2 potatoes

Oil

Decide to go for a run, leave Jake with Dad's instruction on how to make a roux (because you'll be making a panfry), and meet a student from the institute and walk with them instead of running :(. Come back and discover that the instructions were not clear enough and that instead of making a Roux, jake has mixed the flour with water and a little oil but he's left them in a cup and not done anything with them while he started to cook the potatoes, onions, and sausage. Go ahead and try to cook the failed roux in the other pan, but fail miserably and make some sort of pancake thing. Decide to cook that in a bit of beer, throw that in the other pot and add beer to that and some water; because you say "To heck with this, we're having soup!" Go ahead and make the stew; try your own hand at making a roux-be slightly more successful as you only use oil and brown that. Then add it to the stew. Once the stew is almost finished, start roasting some garlic and add that into the pot. Cook about ten more minutes and get eat. This probably won't be good with egg in the morning. Resolve to ask dad for more detailed information about how to make a roux.

Final posts from Korea

Our last few days in Korea were pretty fun but they also had some low points for me. The night we went to the DMZ was our last night and we had dinner with the students who had been with us that week and would be coming to PSU to study. It was a nice dinner; I sat next to one and Dr. lee. Jake and I learned later that Dr. Lee has a bit of a darker side, according to the other students. They told us that, while Dr. Lee was very nice and friendly when he spoke English, when he spoke Korean he got pretty strict and pushy. Not sure what to make of that; he’s always been good to us, but it does explain a lot.

That night our group all went out to do something that I probably should not explicitly state, but I will say that it was completely legal to do so for us in Korea and we all had a wonderful time. Or at least I think we did. I’m not one-hundred percent sure, while the rest of the group played “Kiss” (which is more of “truth” than “dare” if you want to compare it to an American game) I was singing Irish and Scottish love songs-Whiskey in the Jar, Whiskey You’re the Devil, Cod Liver Oil and the Orange Juice, and MacPherson’s Rant-not of my own direct choosing; I just started to lose interest in the game as I was not vital to the game that they were playing. Going home was a lot of fun, though I think we were kind of loud. No one paid much attention to me, so I went ahead and marched home, staying up front, with the people leading us home. We all made it home safely-though we didn’t go to bed right away (if Jake or ever gives me trouble, I’ve got a nice little video that’ll be some marvelous blackmail).

The next day we bid the rest of the group farewell, for they were going home. I guess we were still feeling the effects of the previous night, because our goodbye was much more civil and fond than I would have previously guessed. Jake then proceeded to go back to bed, while I busied myself cleaning laundry and preparing for our departure in two days. Around 1300 we met Yuri down in Itaewon, who took us to grab some food; though none of us were feeling too hungry we all tried to eat. We then left to go meet Swan, somewhere near the university, but she got lost somehow and we waited for a while.

We had a pretty good Korean dinner-can’t for the life of me remember what it is called; it’s some sort of noodle soup, but it was damn good (in the words of Hai-Xiao). Still not too hungry, we ate, but not much; which is a pity because I enjoyed it a lot. Then the girls took us to a night club that was having some promotional deal so everything was free. I got to see the Korean version of a “whigger” and it helped cement my disgust with the modern pop-culture. We left around 10, said our goodbyes and made our way home. I went to bed because the next day Mark was coming by to take me to his church-a bit odd, but I didn’t want to make things awkward between me and Mark and he seemed pretty intent on taking me there. Turns out, it’s the largest church in the world. No AC in there, but it was kind of cool because we sang a Korean hymn set to the tune of “Marching Through Georgia.”

Jake didn’t come, because he wasn’t feeling well and he wasn’t inclined to go to something he didn’t believe in. That may have been a bit of a mistake because we didn’t eat until dinner except for a snack I ate with Mark before church. It was this toast thing with eggs and jam and it was amazing. We went back to pick up Jake and then Mark dropped us off at the Korean War Museum. I thought the place was extremely cool and I’m a little disappointed we didn’t have more time; though Jake seemed to want to move on though. I really liked all the tanks and all the information it had; from a totally new prospective (the ROK’s of course); though it was funny read about how “ROK forces stopped the KPA and began pushing them back, aided by a landing at Inchon by Southern forces,” because I don’t recall hearing all that much about ROK Marines (though I know there were a few there), Inchon being a primarily U.S. operation. Not to mention Chicomm and Nork sources all say how they focused on fighting U.S. forces.


In any case, the museum was neat. We decided to go to Itaewon for dinner, because I was having a craving for Middle Eastern food. We were extremely fortunate because one of those street pamphlet people handed us one for an Arabian restaurant. We decided to go there and were extremely satisfied by our decision. The food was not bad; though Habashi House in KC does better falafals, but the kebab were decent. We got to smoke a bit of hookah and that was Jake’s first time. We had fun, then went back to our hotel to pack.



Jake did his laundry, but spent the majority of that night talking with Yuri on the phone, while I busied myself with my preparations and then getting into arguments with people back home because of my black mood. It wasn’t really a good night, but the next day we got up and Jake started to pack while I went out looking for some gimbap to grab for lunch. I found a cheap little restaurant, had a roll; bought Jake a bit and a little extra for myself later. We then went to the airport, the sorry details of which have already been recorded in my previous writings on this blog. But it’s totally bull how they charged us that fee.

In the end what did I think of Korea? Korea’s a difficult country for me to understand. On one hand, I had a really great time meeting people and I saw some really wonderful stuff. And I think from my previous blogs you can see what a wonderful time I have had and all the positive stuff. So I think I’ll have to look at the negative in this post.
On the other hand I’ve heard some things from others and I saw some stuff that hinted at a bit of a darker side in the relationship between the U.S. and the R.O.K. Some of the stuff I had kind of heard from Elly and I’d seen during anti-US protests. Beliefs that make me question whether the South Koreans really want us as an ally and the only reason they tolerate us is because they’re afraid of North Korea. Hell, from what I saw, some of them think they should work harder to build ties with North Korea while beginning to sever the ties with America. From what I hear about Roh’s presidency, that was his political philosophy.

I don’t think some Koreans really like Americans apart from anything other than our power. They respect that, but would be just as happy to see us all take a great running jump off a cliff if we didn’t have it. I suppose that’s the fate of a super power. No real friends and plenty of enemies (we’ll get on China later). The stuff I hear from even reasonable people makes me very annoyed. Of course they’re eager to complain about how the U.S. treats them, not really considering the benefits they get from the alliance-military security, nuclear security, an extremely favorable treat with regards to the U.S. camps in Korea, and a highly profitable trade (for both sides). Not to mention how poorly they treat smaller countries themselves-Philippines and Vietnam come to mind-and what bloody benefit do they bring to them? No security, trade agreements that are more unfair than the worst of the US-ROK ones (which are pretty even handed-what’s wrong with having the Koreans allow more beef in their country-which is safe-so that they can ship more cars to ours-how’s GM doing these days?)
Some of the stuff also just irritates me; “US didn’t unify the peninsula just so that they can sell weapons to South Korea.” OK…so 38,000 combat deaths and many more wounded just for arms sales? Let’s not forget that now the R.O.K. is not doing too badly for itself-K1A1s, not M1A1s… Or let’s ask the Chicomms and Norks how they felt about unification? Why the hell should we have risked World War III and tens of millions of lives (and probable nuclear war) to unify a peninsula with a population of (then) less than 40 million? Nichevo; can’t be helped. The fate of the mighty American grizzly: to life out his life alone and die alone. Teddy called it on that one: “The world will never love us. Fear us, maybe even respect us, but never love us. We’re to independent, strong headed, and a bit arrogant.”


Another problem is how emotional the Korean people are. When Roh was alive, he was facing charges of corruption that were beginning to look pretty accurate and the country was howling for his blood. He jumps off a cliff and now he’s a national hero? People condemned his presidency as a failure and him as (apparently accurately) a hypocrite crook. Now he’ll be remembered as one of the finest presidents Korea has ever had (not that he’s got all that much to compete with-military dictators and all that). So, I think this whole morning process was pretty much a whole hunk of bull. But, what can you do? That’s the natural culture. I’m sure that these negatives are related to some positive somewhere, even if I can’t quite see it; and Korea does have a lot of positives going for it. I’ll miss the country very much.

I think that’s enough for now. I’m almost caught up; I’ll try to get into Kazakhstan in the next few days.

Also, here's a few recipies from our time here.
Kazakhstan Recipies:
Alex and Jake's Totally Awesome Kazakh Stew

2 Carrots (one small one, one freakishly huge)
4 potatoes (cut up midway through the boiling process)
1/8 Salami Moscovskaya
Salt


Start by washing the carrots and potatoes. Cut the carrrots (but not the potatoes) and then put them into a pot of water. Bring to a boil. Realize that you need to cut up the potatoes so fish them out and cut them into smaller chunks. Put them back in-try not to drop them in, or you'll splash boiling water onto your arm and that sucks. Then realize that you need some more flavor, so slice up some sausage (Salami Moscovskaya is a good safe bet-best sausage we've had in Kazakhstan so far) and plop 'em in, adding a little salt for flavor. Once the stew stops smelling like dirt and the potatoes and carrots looked cooked, stop and enjoy. Add a little sour cream to make it authentically Russo-Kazakh. For a hardy breakfast, save the left overs and then drop in two eggs the next morning, while reboiling the stew.

Alex and Jake's Totally Awesome Kazakh Pan Fry:

1/2 giant carrot that you didn't use when making the Totally Awesome Kazakh Stew (TM)
2 potatoes
1/4 Italian Bolognia like sausage (Salmi Moscovskaya would probably be better, so if you have it use it)
1 tomato
Vegitable Oil
Salt

Slice carrots into small pieces and potatoes into small cubes or wedges. Slice Sausage and tomatoes. Throw some oil in a pan and start to cook the carrots. After they have had a little while to start, add in the potatoes. Once these have een browned and are starting to looked cooked, add the sausage. Feel free to add salt for flavoring anytime during this process. Once the sausage and the rest of the ingredients are almost cooked add the sliced tomotoes and cook them for a short while. Remove from heat and enjoy with Chili-Ketchup, sour cream, or even mayonnaise.

If you can; get some onions, garlic, or other spices. I'm sure this would be even better with more options. Our menus are a bit limited by what is in our fridge at the moment.

So Goodbye Korea, hopefully we'll see you again