marathon day and the day before it

Minjeong and I went to Seoul around three o'clock on Saturday.

I wanted to sleep near where the race would start, because downtown Seoul is a long ways from my home in Incheon.

With me were all the things I thought I needed for one night in Seoul and one marathon on the next day.

Included:

-bag of fun size snickers (I decided regular size was too big to be eaten on the run and sit in my pocket, and mini size was just too small. Hindsight confirms this kind of snickers was an excellent choice).

-ziplock bag of oatmeal and chia seed mix

-ziplock bag of granola

-ziplock bag of toothpaste and toothbrush

-ziplock bag of a small box of soymilk (this was precaution in case the box broke - reference my "Spilled Milk" post for further information of my philosophy towards milk-spill containment).

-can of Starbucks brand Americano coffee-like drink.

-Dong-a Marathon information booklet

-racing bib, racing shirt, safety pins, and tracking chip (the tracking chip was this little dinky plastic thing that I had no idea what it was. I really only examined it for the first time when I was getting dressed 2 hours before the race. By some miracle, I determined I should keep it.

Probably my decision had to do with the illustration that came with it of someone tying it into his shoelaces. It looked like it wasn't just decoration, so I put it on my shoes. This was a challenge since I was running in my five-finger shoes, which are laceless.

I finally discovered I could slip it in between the back outer strap and the shoe. It seemed reasonable secure there, and I figured it was probably useless anyway, so no big deal if it fell out).

-"The Girl Who Played With Fire" book for my bus ride home.

-shirt

-pair of Sprint five-finger shoes

-bowl

-spoon

All of these were stuffed into a bag that I had received in the mail the week before. This bag had my racing number on it, and if the pictures in the marathon booklet were true, it looked as though I could put this bag on a truck, and they would take it to the end of the race for me.

So Minjeong and I walked around looking for a motel for me to stay at for the night. I could have asked about price myself, but she could do it better.

More importantly, she could ask about microwaves (surprising, to me anyway, the word "microwave" isn't the same in English and Korean, while words like "television" and "radio" are. I had to explain to her what a microwave was, and then she told me what the word for it is in Korean, which I repeated a few times to myself and then forgot twenty minutes later).

In the end, the only place with a microwave was really expensive. Then Minjeong had a great idea - I could just microwave stuff in any convenience store.

You can probably do that in the US too, but it's something that never occurred to me, having a microwave at home.

So I got a cheap room, convenience store and coffee shop adjacent.

We celebrated at an awesome burrito shop, similar to Chipotle but ridiculously more expensive.

I realized then that a hypothetical, evil burrito shop could name any price, if they were the only game in town, and I would eat there eventually if I had the money.

Then Minjeong helped me once again by informing me that tomorrow would probably rain from 6 AM to noon.

I kind of refused to believe it at first. My first marathon wasn't supposed to be rainy. How is that fair?

But there it was, clear as day on her iPhone. Rain.

I realized that if it was going to rain, I was going to be in trouble. It was also going to be fairly cold (4 degrees Celsius low and 8 high). I had a hoodie, which was by no means rain-resistant. In fact, it would just soak up rain like a milk in a napkin.

It was a classic catch-22. Wear the hoodie and be warm at first and then eventually freeze when it soaks through and becomes really heavy, or go in only the sleeveless marathon shirt and be really cold and wet from the start?

In the end I was saved by buying a rain-proof windbreaker - definitely the most useful thing I've bought this year.

Minjeong, who was tired after a long day of making sure I didn't perish within my own poorly laid plans, went home to Incheon. And I went to bed.

That night was one of the longest nights I remember, even though I had less the seven hours. It felt like three nights. I woke up at least once every single hour.

I finally got out of bed just before 6 AM. I picked up my bag and walked outside.

This was the lowest point of the day. It was still dark out, I was tired, and it was raining. Not hard, but a depressing kind of drizzle that slowly drains your soul.

The urge to turn back inside, ask for my key back, and go to sleep, was large. I could get a good sleep, and then eventually crawl to nearby coffee shop, read, and watch the fools run past in the rain.

No one was with me. I could just tell them all I ran the marathon. No one would know any better.

I took a step out from under the awning, and my shoes (five-fingers) were instantly soaked through with stupid, cold water.

Still not convinced of my plan to run the marathon, I made my way to convenience store. I bought a large water, and then went to the back, set my bag down, and started my breakfast operation (below).

And an operation it was. I was there for about twenty minutes, just hanging out while my oatmeal cooked and then cooled and then I ate it (you can see it cooking in the picture. Next to the microwave is my bag with all that stuff I already told you about).

Meanwhile the shopkeeper would give me dirty or suspicious looks. I didn't really care. I wasn't happy for what was about to happen.

While I was eating, a Korean man came in. Instantly I knew he was a runner in the marathon. He was skinny and fit looking, and had a backpack. He asked where Sejung Road was (where the marathon started), and then he left.

Somehow his being there gave me a little encouragement. At least I would go to the start and check things out.

After that a lady came in and looked at my oatmeal. She asked me something in Korean. I understood enough that she was asking about the smell. I said it smells good. She asked me some other things which I didn't understand, so I just said "oatmeal, oatmeal" until she went away, but not before I offered her a bite of it. She declined.

On my way out I bought a vitamin C drink, mostly as a way to smooth things out with the shopkeeper. He said, "Marathon?" and said yes. "Good luck," he said. I thanked him.

Maybe he wasn't angry with me.

The next stop was Ediya, the adjacent coffee shop. In the week before the marathon I abstained from coffee and alcohol. Coffee was definitely the harder of the two to resist, and I was awaiting this cup with great anticipation.

What would I get? Espresso, latte, americano? Espresso seemed the most practical - it would give me the caffeine with the minimal amount of liquid. Latte, while being the most delicious of the three, had the slight added risk of disagreeing with my stomach (because of the milk).

In the end, I settled on an americano. It had more liquid than espresso, but I hadn't had coffee in nearly a week and I wanted to savor it a little more than a quick shot would allow.

The coffee shop was closed, despite their promise the night before! I decided to go on towards the starting line. I still had my Starbucks canned coffee as back-up if I needed it. Fortunately, McDonalds was open and serving coffee, and I got my americano there.

So now I was walking in the rain in the dark with a stuffed bag on one arm, and my americano and water bottle tenuously gripped in my other. As I walked, scalding coffee splashed around and ran down my arm.

I wasn't upset so much as I was in disbelief of myself and the choices I had made that led me to this moment.

I didn't have to much time to reflect on that though, because suddenly I needed to poop really badly.

There was a subway stop nearby with a bathroom. Down below I had discovered the hidden cave of the marathon runners. The area was packed with people in shorts, running up and down, and stretching.

It was one of those rare times when the men's line is much longer than the women's.

Afterwards my journey to the starting line continued (it seemed like a real journey at this point). I realized I now only had 15 minutes left to get to the truck to drop my bag off, otherwise I would be stuck with it.

That left me with little time to take pictures, but I did get a pretty nice one of the starting area, near the awesome soldier statue in downtown Seoul (below).

As you can see, the ground is covered in stupid, cold water.

Here's the ground again, still covered in water.

As I stashed my bag, I resolved to finish the race. I needed to get my bag back (my keys and wallet were in there, and now my camera too), and the best way to do that was to finish the race. Also, I was feeling a little more charged up surrounded with all these runners and supporters.

Just then a Korean transvestite run past in full make-up and wig.

I made my way over to an outdoor heater, and hung out there for a while, and then I jogged up some stairs and stretched.

The race was beginning, and I looked for my group which was D. We got started after A, B, and C. While we were waiting, some people behind me were commenting on my shoes in English, so I talked to them.

I felt some added encouragement and pressure to finish the race - I needed to represent my bizarre shoes and well as myself.

One red-haired guy was also an English teacher. When the race started, we ran next to each other for the first 10 kilometers or so. He said there were about 40,000 people running, of which only about 1000 were foreigners like him and me.

Probably most of those foreigners were also resident English teachers or military. Some were invited (some Kenyans who made up 8 of 10 of the top seeds, some Japanese, and a smattering of other countries).

Within the first 15 minutes, we passed a hedge where about 10 guys were lined up and peeing on the side of the road. In the beginning half of the race, there were lots of people peeling off to pee in hedges or alleyways. When I finally lost my red-haired friend (whose name I never discovered) it was because I had to pee too.

The beginning of the race was awesome. 16 kilometers flew past, and I scarcely noticed. I discovered that running in a pack of people is incredibly fun. There's something more than hippy superstition to communal energy.

For a long time I ran next to a "pacemaker." He's a guy with a balloon tied to his hat that says a finish time (this guy was 4:30). If you run next to this guy for the whole race, you'll end with a time near 4 hours and 30 minutes. They have pacemakers for every 10 minute intervals up to 5 hours. I don't know where the low end begins.

I was feeling good at the 21 kilometer mark - halfway! They were giving out bananas and water there. The clock read something like 2:2o or 2:30 I think (but I get to subtract some time because I started with group D).

At one point the race took us under a bridge. Under the bridge, everyone would shout and it would echo and sounded really cool.

I started dipping into my pocket for snickers and eating them without stopping. It was a little hard to breathe, but I managed.

By 30 kilometers, I had run farther than I had ever run before by at least a few miles. My left leg started acting funny - it wasn't quite moving the way I told it to. Almost, but not quite. It felt like it was locking up every now and then and I almost stumbled a few times. But I didn't.

By 33 kilometers I was getting anxious to finish the race. While the kilometers had flown past in the beginning, I was now counting every one, and they seemed farther apart than they should be.

Around this time the sun came out and the rain stopped. Then the sun disappeared again, but at least the rain was over with.

At 34 kilometers, we crossed the Han River on Jamsil bridge. There were drummers and people holding their hands out, and shouting "whiting!" which means "fighting!" (some Koreans have trouble with "f"). Fighting is an expression that I think only exists in Korea, and it basically means "don't give up!"

It was energizing, and I high-fived some people on the roadside and shouted "fighting!" back.

At 36 kilometers, I started counting to 100 in my head very slowly, and then starting again from zero. This was a pretty good distraction from my aching legs and feet.

At 40 kilometers I could see Jamsil Stadium, inside of which was the finish line. I was still counting - out loud now. I picked up my pace a little bit, and almost fell down when my leg wobbled under me.

Inside the stadium was a race track. The runners did one loop and then crossed the finish line. I was ready to be done. I picked up the pace, and for the last 100 meters or so I sprinted and crossed the line.

My legs weren't being very cooperative afterwards, and I shuffled around like I was very old, and was generally being very melodramatic. I traded in my tracking chip for snacks and my medal.

I spotted my red-haired friend again, who had apparently finished about ten minutes before I did. He asked if I had ink on my shirt. I looked down. My right nipple had bleed through my shirt, and I hadn't noticed until just now.

I sat on the grass near a tent, and some Koreans brought me a free lunch of kimchi, tofu, soup, and makali (rice wine).

Spilled Milk

We've got these new cups at school that seem like they were intentionally designed to spill. Some of the design flaws include:

1. They are very wide.
2. They have convex bottoms.
3. They have some poor excuse for a handle that was obviously never meant for a human being to use.

Every morning we serve the preschoolers milk in these cups, and every morning they spill them.

It's not their fault, really. As I said before, these cups are really sucky. And not only are the cups terrible, but we need to fit about eight of them on a plate, so we stack a few of them.

So in the end, we have a castle of cups, brimming with delicious milk, presented in the middle of a table of thirsty preschoolers who haven't yet come into full control of their finer motor skills.

There is really only one possible outcome.

So today they spilled the milk again. One cup spilled all over the plate.

Good, I thought to myself. The milk spilled, which was unavoidable anyway, and the disaster area is contained within the plate. It will be an easy task to take the plate to the kitchen, and.... oh my God, what are they doing???

While I was wrapped in my own thoughts about the milk, the children had launched their own milk clean-up campaign. I had no time to react and stop it.

They ran to get toilet paper from a roll we keep in the classroom. They each took a couple squares and vigourosly dabbed them into the milk pond.

The squares would quickly absorb the maximum amount of milk.

"No, just leave it there, Johnny," I said. But Johnny looked up at me with his big, vacant eyes. He could understand that his name had been said, and that I was trying to communicate something to him.

But he didn't figure it out. So he took the milk soaked square, and carried it back across the room to the trashcan, leaving a long, dripping trail of milk.

Of course the other kids followed Johnny's shining example, and before long, my small, contained spill had become a full blown, all-encompassing milkastrophe.

The Six Million Man

There's a river nearby my house where I like to run.

I should clarify that by "river," I mean "stream", and by "house," I mean "apartment",

And by "stream" I of course mean "sewage runoff."

Anyway, that's where I was running the other day.

A lot of people were out that day because it was a holiday here in Korea - "Sam Il" aka March 1st, is the day some Korean college students wrote a declaration of independence of their country from Japan, and mailed it to the local Japanese government along with turning themselves over to the police.

So anyway, I was running on the day of the anniversary of that.

A man was running ahead of me, so I followed him. I decided that I would just go wherever he went.

We got to the end of the trail about a mile later, and he turned around and started running the other way. This is when he first saw me, and I gave him a nod.

After that, he would keep looking over his shoulder every 5 minutes or so to see where I was. One time I almost caught up to him, but I think he heard me, and he picked up his pace.

He was pretty fast. I probably could have caught up to him, but I didn't want to exhaust myself, and besides, I didn't know how far we were going.

Whenever I got close he would speed up. I had to pick up my pace just to keep from losing him.

We went to the very end of the trail in the other direction (maybe 6 more miles), and he turned around. This time he gave me a hearty "Hey!" or "Hoy!" or something like that, and I gave him a smile and an out-of-breath muttering that was supposed to be "Hi."

This time he waited, and we ran together for some way. We had some conversation, but he didn't speak English, and least not in sentences, so it was mostly in Korean, of which I understood a bit.

I managed to tell him that I was preparing for a marathon. He suggested that we run again later, so he gave me his card.

We met up again Saturday morning. He wanted to meet at 6 AM, which I eventually negotiated to 8 AM, and he somehow renegotiated to 7:30.

We drove to Incheon Grand Park. We ran around the park twice, and then up a hill in the middle of the park twice - it took about two and a half hours.

Afterwards he asked if I wanted to drink makali.

Maybe I mentioned makali before. It's one of Korea's own alcoholic drinks. It's a kind of wine made out of rice. I don't know how they make it, all I know is that it's delicious.

So of course I agreed, and off we went, drinking at 11 AM, or as I like to call it, "business as usual."

(Just kidding, Mom, about usually getting drunk in the morning).

Afterwards, he took me to Incheon City Hall, where he works. We showered, and I thought that was the end of it, but it turns out he wasn't ready to quit.

"Health, 10 minutes."

He meant that he wanted to work out at the gym for ten minutes. I said sure, and so we went to his office gym and worked out for like 40 minutes.

Whenever I was resting or stretching or otherwise slacking off, he'd hustle me away to another machine.

Also, this man is 55 years old.

Earlier, when we were running up the hill, he called me the "six million man."

I got the reference, but I tried to tell him that I had never seen that movie, which I don't think he understood, and then he said something else which I didn't understand, and then we both just laughed.

Another idea floating out into the ether, and no one understands it.

Marathon

I signed up for a marathon last week. It's going to happen in Seoul on the 20th of March, which gives me 20 days from today to prepare.

So far, I have never run more than 15 miles. I was going to run 17 miles yesterday, but it was rainy. I still went running anyway, and I had mixed feelings about it. It was nice that no one else was outside, but that was for a good reason - it was really cold, wet, and muddy.

In the end, I decided that if I was going to try to run the full 17 miles that day, I would probably get sick, so I went home after about 8 miles.

I hope that on the day of the marathon I will:

-complete it in less than 5 hours (they allot you 1 hour/fifth of the race, and if you take more than that, they'll sweep you up in one of their sweep vehicles).

-not poop on myself.

Two modest goals, I think.

bling bling

bling bling (above).

Last week Saturday was one of the first warm days this year, and I took advantage. For hours, I wandered around the streets with my fellow English teachers and allies, Logan and Bettina.

We had high aspirations for the day - visiting a palace and getting a quote a full back tattoo (don't worry, it's not for me, but for discretions' sake, I won't say whether it's for Logan or Bettina).

In the end, there was no time for the palace, and we just barely found the tattoo parlor.

The reason it took us so long to find the tattoo parlor was mostly thanks to a truly diabolical map, which lists as major landmarks a coffee shop that has since gone out of business and a movie theatre that probably never existed. Three roads were on the map, none of which resembled their real life counterparts.

In the end, we called the tattoo parlor and had someone meet us and take us there.

But before we did that, we went to a Mexican restaurant. Bettina ordered guacamole.

"Sorry, we don't have that."

"But... you're a Mexican restaurant."

"Sorry."

Then she got her quesadilla (above), which made her even sadder. It was less than a full tortilla, cut into two slices. Also, did I say there was no guacamole?

She asked if she could have some toppings from my burrito, but I refused.

I (above), on the other hand, was very content. In this picture I am drinking a corona and a horchata at the same time. It was a really good horchata.

My burrito, unlike Bettina's quesadilla, was quite good. And for some reason, it had avocado (the quintessential ingredient of guacamole).

And finally, this is a missile (it's not relevant to the story).

The Snow on Chungryung San and 2 other photos

I go to this mountain near my house pretty often. It's called Chungryung. I want to show you some pictures of what it looks like covered in snow.

Here's a picture of Songdo from the top of the mountain. It's where all the rich folks live.

This is supposed to be a picture of the Incheon bridge, which is like seven miles long. But it's too cloudy, so you can't see it, can you? Anyway, you would have really liked it.

There are trails like this one all over the mountain.
This is my new friend, Minjung. She just built a lego robot that can walk, so she's pretty pleased with herself right now.
This is a Buddhist temple at the base of the mountain. You can't go very far without tripping over a Buddhist temple on this mountain.
Some stairs.
This is probably just a radio tower.
Burial mounds.


This is why I come up here.
Who are these people?
This was from a trip to an island I took back in September. We hiked along the coastline, scrambling over rocks and stuff. This is when we stopped to pose for a commercial about young, hip people.

I hope you enjoyed my photos.

My Job as I See it Having Lived in Korea for 4 Months and some Odd Days

My job is to teach English to Korean children.

The qualifications for my job, and other jobs that are like it, is to finish elementary, middle, and high school in an English speaking country and then to get a bachelor's degree from a college or university in an English speaking country. Also, during that time you should avoid getting caught stealing things or smoking things that are illegal to smoke.

The reason my job, and all the others like it, exist is because English is the most important language in the world. It's the most important language in world because the United States is currently the most important country in the world, and that's what they mostly speak there.

Before the United States, England was the most important country. They also speak English there. That's where they thought it up, in fact. But now, sometimes, people who speak English from countries that are not England have a difficult time understanding what English people are saying because they have accents and they use slang that nobody but people from England use.

The reason that there are many jobs in Korea for English speakers to become teachers of English is because Koreans want to learn English. I think they want to learn it because it's currently the most important language in the world, and not for many other reasons.

For instance, I don't think they particularly care about how nice English sounds.

Many Koreans also learn Japanese, Chinese, and German. They probably learn Japanese and Chinese because they are close to these countries, and because so many people in the world speak Chinese. More people speak Chinese than English, in fact.

But Chinese is not currently the most important language, so it's less popular for Koreans to learn Chinese.

I don't know why they want to learn German. Maybe I'll ask them that sometime.

Koreans are required to take English class in public schools these days, similar to how public schools in the United States that are nearby Mexico require the students to take Spanish classes. Similar to many of the students in the United States who are required to take Spanish classes, many of the Korean students who are required to take English classes don't really want to learn English, and they don't try very hard.

There are English “hagwons” all over the place here. You can hardly throw a stick without hitting at least two of them. Hagwon roughly translates to the word “academy” in English, but there isn't really an equivalent sort thing in the United States. Maybe a better translation would be “after school program.”

There are all kinds of hagwons in Korea: some are for piano, some are for Taekwondo, but the most popular kind is for English.

Some families in Korea have lots of money, and some of those families that have lots of money want to send their kids to English hagwons. So what this means is that instead of going home after school, the kids go to an English hagwon, like the one that I work for, where they have more school.

Many of the kids who have to go to hagwons after school are probably thinking “Wow, I have a lot of work to do!” But then again, maybe they don't, because so many kids in Korea are doing the same thing.

Similar to classes in a public school, many of the students in English hagwons don't really want to learn English, and are only there because their parents made them go.

Some of the students want to learn English, or maybe they are thinking “I'm going to be here every day after school, I might as well try to learn English.” They probably aren't thinking that thought in English though, because then they probably wouldn't need to go to an English hagwon.

My job is to come to the hagwon every weekday, and then stand at the front of a classroom with between three and ten children in it, and then to talk at them in English.

This is also sometimes called “teaching English.”

Most of them don't understand the majority of what I say to them, but usually there is one kid in the class that understands enough, or one kid will guess correctly what I'm trying to tell them, and then I can point to that kid and say “Yes, do this.”

I usually give that kid a thumbs-up when I say that, because in Korea a thumbs-up means basically the same as it does in the United States, and the kids will understand that I think that kid was doing a good job.

Often times the students will not do anything close to what I told them to do in English. Sometimes this is because they can't understand what I'm talking about, and sometimes it's because they don't want to do what I'm talking about. Sometimes it's hard for me to tell the difference between these two things, so sometimes I discipline the students when they don't understand me, and sometimes I don't discipline them when they are deliberately not doing what I'm talking about.

The reason I discipline the students is because I think that if I don't discipline them that they won't respect me and the other teachers will think I'm too soft on them, and they won't respect me either.

One way I discipline the students is by making a disobedient student stand with both of their arms straight up. This is supposed to embarrass the student. It might also tire them out from keeping their arms up if they have to do it for a long time. This is something I only use on students who have disrupted class in a way that my usual methods can't control.

My usual method of controlling the behavior of my students is by writing the word “stick” on the whiteboard at the beginning of class. By now, all of my classes know that “stick” is short for “stickers.” They also know that if anyone in the class does something to throw off the order of class, I will erase one letter. I will also add letters if they are being well-behaved, or if they are trying to answer my questions.

I very rarely erase all the letters, and I try not to erase too many, because sometimes the students will start to give up if they see the class is losing too many letters, and when that happens it means that I've lost a lot of leverage with them.

I write the word “stick” on a whiteboard about five times a day, or twenty-five times a week.

I have more than five classes a day, but the reason I only write “stick” five times is because I don't write it on the board for the preschool classes. The preschool classes all have their individual names permanently affixed to the whiteboard. They have a running tally each day that records how many stickers they will be awarded at the end of that day.

There are no real stickers. The name comes from a folder they have that's called “Sticker Book.” What I think is that originally my bosses thought that they and all the teachers would be giving out stickers to fill the sticker books. But stickers are expensive and they are hard to peel off sticker sheets in the quantity that they would need to be pulled off in order to distribute them to all the students who earned them.

So instead of stickers, the kids get stars drawn with a red pen or sometimes a red crayon (I've even done it with a black pen before when there was nothing red handy). Recently I have been drawing circles instead of stars because circles are much easier to draw. Only a few of the students complained about that. I usually give them stars if they ask for stars, but most students don't seem to care.

They also don't seem to care that they don't get any real stickers in their sticker book. I think that if I was a kid, I would care about this. I think a lot of them probably don't know what “sticker” means. They probably think it means red star or circle (or black, in a pinch).

One time a kid in my class spoke after I had just told everyone “No more talking, or I'm going to take away a sticker”. So I had to take away a sticker even though I didn't want to. I don't like taking away stickers to begin with, and in this situation I especially didn't want to do it because I thought this was one of those situations where he didn't understand what I was saying.

But I felt I needed to take away a sticker, because I knew the kids who I really did want to be quiet understood what I meant when I said “No more talking, or I'm going to take away a sticker,” because they were immediately quiet after I had said that. I felt that if I didn't take away sticker now, they would think that I was soft, and next time they might keep talking when I want them not to.

So I erased a sticker. Everyone in class knew whose fault it was, and the two kids who I had wanted to be quiet decided to go up to the one who talked and punch him in the head. So they did that. They must have thought that although I didn't want them to speak, I was okay with them physically attacking each other. I wasn't, so I took away all of their stickers.

Some kids really like their red stars or circles.

If you are a Korean student at the hagwon I work at, what you do with the red stars and circles is this: you save them up and save them up until “sticker day” happens. This happens twice every six months, or four times a year. When this happens, you can trade your stickers for play money. You can use the play money to buy snack foods, play games, or buy toys.

It seems pretty silly to me, and I sometimes wonder why the students get so crazy about collecting these completely made-up things, and then I remember that money is pretty much the exact same thing, but for grown-ups. That doesn't help me understand it any better, but it does make me acknowledge that the sticker collecting never really stops, not for most people, and not for me.

Every month, my bosses pay me 2.2 million won. Won is what the grown-ups in Korea use for stickers. 1200 won is worth about one US dollar (the dollar is what people in the United States use for stickers. It's generally thought of as the most powerful and dependable sticker in the world, and that probably has something to do with English currently being the most important language in the world).

My bosses also pay the rent for my apartment, which is a very good thing for me, because I would have no idea how to pay my rent otherwise.

There are several things I don't know about, like what my mailing address is, or even the name of the building that I live in. When I describe where I live to people, I just tell them about the restaurant at the bottom of the building, which is called Jjokki-Jjokki. I tell them that I live on the fifth floor of the Jjokki-Jjokki building.

They seem to know what I mean.