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Recent Annoyances

Believe it or not, I’m trying not to rant and complain too much these days, as I said last night to some friends I was hanging out with. But you know, I just spent the afternoon dealing with something that, as usual, incompetent idiots didn’t deal with, and I’m in a mood. And yes, this involves a water leak and my closet, though it’s a different closet — though the source of the previous one’s leak, if that says anything to you…

But if you’re not up for a rant, just click on the link above, about the friends I was with. That was the best time I’ve had out in a while. (Not including jaunts down the hall, that is.)

Well, the cardinal thing that annoyed me this week was waking up to find that the water leak — which, in the case of the water leaking down into my old apartment, was attributed to some kind of roof-drainage problem — is actually most likely caused by a broken water pipe in my bathroom. The people who claimed it was a roof drainage pipe just never bothered to check any of the upstairs plumbing. (Or even the concrete behind the closet, which can be seen when one takes out the drawers, and which is all stained with long-term water damage.)

This morning was extra-fun, because I discovered that the water had leaked so high up that it had begun to flood my bedroom: the floor was all wet, the blanket, my clothes hamper — and today I was NOT planning on doing laundry, but now it’s all wet and I have no choice. But first, I had to get the water out from the under-closet  floor.

How much water was it, did you ask? This much:

Yes, I got all this water out with a scoop and a towel. The bucket isn't small: it reaches to about 3/4 of the way up to my knee. It was not fun.

Yes, that annoyed me. The Housing Office people also annoyed my by saying they would come on Friday to assess what kinds of repairs would need to be done, and then decided — without calling  or making any effort to notify anyone that they didn’t need to, and wouldn’t. Thanks, guys, that’s why I woke up early.

They say they’ll be able to fix it in one day while I’m away. How this is possible, what with the tearing-into-concrete and replacing tiles that will be necessary, is beyond me. But if I come back from my visa run and my bathroom is a shambles, or this is not fixed, I’m going to defenestrate someone.

While I’m ranting… since I try to make an effort not to rant too much these days, I will splurge it all here, I’ll note that a link I found somewhere online led me to this post at Kimchi-Icecream. Which uses the word doumi, and which reminded me of something else that annoyed the crap out of me:

I’m seriously annoyed at the pattern of people correcting me about things that I’m not wrong about. At a party a few weeks ago, a young Korean woman very seriously corrected me that I was wrong about the meaning of the word “doumi.”

I had said that the word was used to describe the young women who are paid to dress in revealing or cheesy clothing and dance in front of newly opened shops. The young lady insistently corrected me that no, this was not the case, that those are “Narrator Models” and that “doumi” are young women who are paid to show up at room salons and, er, service the patrons.

Well, what do you know but the very next day, a (very well-educated) Korean was talking about the poor doumi girls she saw dancing outside in the afternoon. Ah, the righteous air of vindication! It may well be that the meaning of doumi is ambiguous, but if it is, that’s definitely not just a foreigner thing: it’s a word I’ve heard other Koreans  use in this way, too.

What the hell is it with people who get off correcting other people, offering their own idiosyncratic definitions of words and  meanwhile contradicting common usage?

I know, I know: just don’t talk to people like that. But it’s annoying, and I felt like venting.

And now, for my next trick, I’m going to try reserve a ticket on the KTX online. Gotta go use Windows. I’ll update if there’s more to rant about.

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