Sangju Memoryshow

 

Pro-tip: you hire someone for a job, you tell them everything that is expected of them. You try, but often there are edge cases of failure, to arrange things so there are no surprises. Part of good on-boarding systems is that there are few assumptions. "It works for me." is garbage sentiment and wholly unhelpful to the new hire. If in the course of explaining how something works, it should work exactly as described when the new hire tries it. If your company cannot do these things, then that new hire will be convinced after the first day they have been set up to fail.

Of all the possible pictures to encapsulate today, this is _the shot_. In the background, on the wall, the temperature reads 30.5 just because that’s as high as it will go. Next to that is the AC control for the filthiest ceiling unit I’ve ever seen, which I turned on anyway because this dorm had been an oven from before I even opened the door today with my first load of crap for my new home 4-5 days a week for the next year. Ah, “But the green screen!” you say, well look at those swanky new ring lights. Everything in duplicate for this endeavor. After nine months of joblessness money is the game now, so whether in Sangju or Jinju, I need to be teaching online if possible. “But the green screen!!” Frustration at its apex births solutions for sure, yet this was like my fourth attempt at blocking the ‘sacked’ look behind me and the piles of water tissue sopping up smoker-level dust bunnies.

The AC shut off automatically at 5pm and I melted through classes at 6pm, 7pm, a call home to flip tables over and lament driving home tonight instead of enduring American-like internet speeds, a dorm previously occupied by what was obviously a squatter—the only proof that it was not is that there are no turds in the bathroom garage bucket. Another professor maybe? Another weekday dude, bro-ing it in the countryside for the shared bank account, the family, the steady work? If so, that professor lived here as a savage, convinced it did not matter how many cups of ramyeon water was split, only that it absorbed into the MDF furniture to color up the drabness. How long did that one last?

They’ve got me beat. I was ready to go home. An hour and 23 minutes to upload a 63 gigabytes of I-am-not-sure-what but the data hoarder deep inside sobs for its purge to make room for this new gig, the online, the other online gig, and a dozen other folders of essentials that trickle over this ... this dialup connection, this cable modem nonsense. At 37 minutes left, I realize I have a 128GB USB on my keyring (da fuq are my keys?) I could have copied my Precious to the USB and deleted the folder and spared myself two hours of "Your Internet connection is unstable" warnings from my online overlords in Singapore.

Yes, yes, the green screen, held up by Pizza School ribbons they wrap around their pizza boxed when you do takeout. Yes, I eat Pizza School pizza because they have cheese with pineapple and corn and I love that. It took years to accept corn on my pizza and you can too, if you open your gd'ed mind, Johnny. Pineapple belongs on pizza and Pizza School does it cheaply. The best part is their ribbons are gold—a million different uses and strong, too. I collect them. I collect the ribbons from every Pizza School takeout pizza because I am a thrifty mf. I scrounge, I scavenge, I tinker, and I then I command ... and I will own this effing dorm.