RANTING/VENTING MEGATHREAD 3.0

...Caloric intake needs depend on your lifestyle. If one expends a lot of energy then one should probably intake more than the average person. If one doesn't really exercise much, one could do with less.

1500 calories has been my average intake before but I never starved myself. I just ate really simply-- like eggs and veggies.

This is why former-athletes are often fat.

Look at most NFL or CFL football coaches.

That's my excuse anyway - I have never been a an athlete but my activity level is much less than it was in younger years.  My eating, however is about the same.

Yup. Post-college I definitely gained more squish around my middle because the job I got after graduating was very sedentary. As I'm not prone to exercising, I try to balance it out with watching my portion consumption and so far I haven't gained a terrible amount of weight. I could definitely do with losing a few pounds and building some muscle though.

This is why former-athletes are often fat.

Look at most NFL or CFL football coaches.

‘A common complaint is that older people have to work twice as hard with their diets and exercise to get half of the results of younger people,’ said Dr Gerald Weissmann, Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal which published the study.

‘Now we have a much better idea why this is the case - our brown fat stops working as we age.

‘Unfortunately, until a way to turn it back on is developed, we'll have to be prepared to eat more salads and lean proteins, while logging more miles on the treadmill than our younger counterparts.’

As I'm not prone to exercising...

Try exercising prone.

Koreans in general seem to think we get paid a lot more than we do. At a meetup with Americans and Koreans, one of the Americans offered to pay for the whole meal because it was one of the Koreans' birthday. The other was surprised, and birthday Korean said to her friend "oh, well, it's because foreign English teachers make a lot of money. 3mil won a month"

I wish!!!

even if you only make 2.5m a month, you still get a free apartment. if you took the housing allowance, you'd be on 3m

2.5m is now the top of the payscale in most places in korea (public school). so you'd have to be here around 3 years or more to get that. the housing allowance is also pretty much a pittance these days, and hasn't increased for ages, while rent has continued to rise. and we might get housing but we don't get the huge chuseok and seollal bonuses the korean teachers do. and if you put those bonuses together, for even the junior korean teachers they will exceed what our housing allowance is every year.

not only that but korean teachers also get 300,000 Won per year of 'well-being' money. they can use that for pretty much anything that helps with their 'well-being'. massages, bus/train tickets to visit their relatives, etc.

Do you know how much their bonuses are?

- They throw half of it away
- This is probably the largest meal they'll eat of the day... sometimes the only one
- They diet/starve themselves
- You'll notice that whilst being thin, muscle is almost non-existent, their bodies keep breaking
  down muscle tissue since glycogen stores are perpetually low.
- Some will do regular cardio

The fast and slow metabolism excuse is... well... BS.
'Natural' metabolic speeds are only really 5% faster than normal, for people with fast metabolisms and 5% slower than normal for folks with slower metabolisms.
The thing that really slows down or kicks up your metabolic speeds is the amount of muscle your body carries. More muscle = faster metabolism and vice versa.

Korean woman, in particular, are starving themselves to look thinner.

i would agree with this. from speaking to the female teachers at my school, the vast majority of them don't eat breakfast. and when i ask them what they have for dinner they'll most often say something like "ramyeon" or "rice and seaweed soup" or something like that.

our school lunches are around 450-600 calories, and those types of dinners aren't more than 500 calories. i would say a lot of the female teachers at my school are only eating 1,000-1,500 calories per day. ANYONE will be skinny eating so few calories.

To be fair, it's pretty healthy to make lunch your largest meal in the day and just have some vegetables and maybe a little brown rice for dinner. Maybe some meat or something if it's a special occasion.

a) it's easier than cooking a big elaborate meal.
b) it's healthier.
c) it's cheaper.
d) you don't go to bed with a bunch of calories just waiting to be converted to fat tissue while you sleep


1500 calories is a perfectly reasonable and healthy amount of calories to have in a day.

That's not how that works

As I'm not prone to exercising...

Try exercising prone.

 

Prone, pronto!

Pandora, I know I started a big band station, but that doesn't mean I want to hear "In the Mood" and "A String of Pearls" and "Stompin' at the Savoy" in an interminable loop, each time played by a different band

Unfortunately jazz and classical are the only two genres that have this kind of problem, so I doubt they'd add some kind of fix for it 

Koreans in general seem to think we get paid a lot more than we do. At a meetup with Americans and Koreans, one of the Americans offered to pay for the whole meal because it was one of the Koreans' birthday. The other was surprised, and birthday Korean said to her friend "oh, well, it's because foreign English teachers make a lot of money. 3mil won a month"

I wish!!!

I went on a date with a guy last year that told me that English teachers made 4 million a month. I was shocked that that seems to be what people think.

...Caloric intake needs depend on your lifestyle. If one expends a lot of energy then one should probably intake more than the average person. If one doesn't really exercise much, one could do with less.

1500 calories has been my average intake before but I never starved myself. I just ate really simply-- like eggs and veggies.

This is why former-athletes are often fat.

Look at most NFL or CFL football coaches.

That's my excuse anyway - I have never been a an athlete but my activity level is much less than it was in younger years.  My eating, however is about the same.

Yup. Post-college I definitely gained more squish around my middle because the job I got after graduating was very sedentary. As I'm not prone to exercising, I try to balance it out with watching my portion consumption and so far I haven't gained a terrible amount of weight. I could definitely do with losing a few pounds and building some muscle though.

Same. I played college soccer and then after I stopped, I definitely gained weight because I wasn't exercising everyday all day anymore and I ate more than I should have.

- They throw half of it away
- This is probably the largest meal they'll eat of the day... sometimes the only one
- They diet/starve themselves
- You'll notice that whilst being thin, muscle is almost non-existent, their bodies keep breaking
  down muscle tissue since glycogen stores are perpetually low.
- Some will do regular cardio

The fast and slow metabolism excuse is... well... BS.
'Natural' metabolic speeds are only really 5% faster than normal, for people with fast metabolisms and 5% slower than normal for folks with slower metabolisms.
The thing that really slows down or kicks up your metabolic speeds is the amount of muscle your body carries. More muscle = faster metabolism and vice versa.

Korean woman, in particular, are starving themselves to look thinner.

i would agree with this. from speaking to the female teachers at my school, the vast majority of them don't eat breakfast. and when i ask them what they have for dinner they'll most often say something like "ramyeon" or "rice and seaweed soup" or something like that.

our school lunches are around 450-600 calories, and those types of dinners aren't more than 500 calories. i would say a lot of the female teachers at my school are only eating 1,000-1,500 calories per day. ANYONE will be skinny eating so few calories.

To be fair, it's pretty healthy to make lunch your largest meal in the day and just have some vegetables and maybe a little brown rice for dinner. Maybe some meat or something if it's a special occasion.

a) it's easier than cooking a big elaborate meal.
b) it's healthier.
c) it's cheaper.
d) you don't go to bed with a bunch of calories just waiting to be converted to fat tissue while you sleep


1500 calories is a perfectly reasonable and healthy amount of calories to have in a day.

That's not how that works

Amen.

To be fair, it's pretty healthy to make lunch your largest meal in the day and just have some vegetables and maybe a little brown rice for dinner. Maybe some meat or something if it's a special occasion.

a) it's easier than cooking a big elaborate meal.
b) it's healthier.
c) it's cheaper.
d) you don't go to bed with a bunch of calories just waiting to be converted to fat tissue while you sleep

1500 calories is a perfectly reasonable and healthy amount of calories to have in a day.

1,500 calories would not be their average intake. that's what they would eat on a good (bad?) day, and that would be at the extreme upper end for them.

the school lunches are around 450-600 calories (this is what our nutrition info sheet says) if you eat the whole thing. if you eat half of it and chuck the other half away, you're looking at what, maybe around 300 calories that some of them are eating for lunch.

if you actually calculate the calories in some of the dishes i mentioned earlier: seaweed soup is around 80-100 calories, 1 cup of rice is about 200-300. so that combined with lunch is actually prob around 6-700 calories per day that some of these women are averaging. if they 'indulge' in ramyeon, that's about 4-500 calories depending on the brand.

and there is no ways anyone can say that being underweight is healthy. it can lead to a host of health problems like anemia, osteoporosis, missed periods (in women), hair loss, irregular hormone regulation, reduced fertility, chronic tiredness, compromised immune system, and dying earlier. there are even some studies that suggest that being underweight is more dangerous to your health than being overweight.

maintenance calories for a 25 year old female who does no exercise, weighs 45kg (i just rounded this up to 100lbs), and is the average height of a south korean female of 5 feet 3 inches, is 1,408 calories per day according to the Mifflin-St Jeor Equation. so.... unless they are eating at least 1,400 calories per day, it's not enough to remain healthy.

Do you know how much their bonuses are?

not really sure but i *think* it may be calculated as a percentage of their salary. so teachers who earn less get less, but it's still fairly large.

don't quote me on that though....

Went for my haircut today and though the hairdresser can cut ok (slightly better than the other ones in my city), she styles my hair like sh*t.

This is the style I go for and I always remind her with the pic. I'm perfectly capable of styling my hair like that, in the mornings. Shower, 4min with a hairdryer, a little pomade and we're good to go.


I emphasise NOT to make it puffy or in any way resembling a K-pop star. She claims to understand then after cutting it, proceeds to puff it up, with the hairdryer, blowing over my natural part for extra puffiness and I end up with this... only messier.



At the end, she asks me "What do you think?" and I told her I didn't like it at all. Again, I showed her the picture for comparison. She then tries to placate me by saying how handsome I look. My hair was already loaded with product, so restyling would've taken too long and probably been another exercise in futility.
I usually grit my teeth and bear with the shame for the few minutes it takes me to get home and wash it out, but FFS, it's really not an outlandish style to get right.

I feel your pain!  There's always an irresistible urge for stylists to "Koreanize" your cut even if you don't ask for it and have specifically told them what you want (plus a picture).

I've found that the list of things I have to tell them not to do is more important than what I'm actually asking for 

I was drivig today and was stuck in a traffic jam.  The car infront, in the lane to my left decided to change lane, as i wanted to change lane myself, i waited for the traffic to start moving, and let him go.  I then idicated and attempted to move into the space he had vacated.  The was a space about 3 cars lengths long and i indicated and started to move over.  Suddenly i heard an engine rev and then this car flew into my front left wing.  The guy decided it would be a good idea to try and drive a 3 car length space before i could get into his lane.  It seemed that one spot ahead in a traffic jam was imprtant.  My video clearly showed him consciously driving into me. 

I called the police and they came and marked the scene.  The insurance guys showed up and had a look, and told me that as my back wheel was just about on a zebra crossing (maybe 2 foot before it ended) it was my fault, they acknowledged that the other guy caused the accident.  So it will go down at best 50/50, even though he caused the accident.  To add insult to injury, he said he wouldn't go to hospital or hire a replacement car (both cars were only cosmetically damaged) if i shouldered the higher burden.

And to make matters worse, the egg tart i baked this evening wasn't that good.  The recipe called for too little sugar.  My wife called it a "Gehran Jjim tart".

Don't you hate it when you make tea and want to drink it right away but it's too hot and it burns your tongue? Yeah. Oh, and the only reason I made tea is because I'm sick and it's settled in my throat. Teaching's going to be a real joy this week. (At least it's finals week.)

8:20 and I'm already annoyed.

Someone (my CT I suspect) has cleaned the whiteboard in my classroom with something and now it's ruined. 

Yay.

Went for my haircut today and though the hairdresser can cut ok (slightly better than the other ones in my city), she styles my hair like sh*t.

At least that style looks decent. You could have received the window-licker bowl-cut that seems to be all the rage with the boys in my area.

8:20 and I'm already annoyed.

Someone (my CT I suspect) has cleaned the whiteboard in my classroom with something and now it's ruined. 

Yay.

Oh. My. Goodness.

I hate it when that happens. It ALWAYS happened to me before. And then the whiteboard won't erase and you get a smudgy, greasy mess.

Yep 

No doubt I'll get blamed for it too 

8:20 and I'm already annoyed.

Someone (my CT I suspect) has cleaned the whiteboard in my classroom with something and now it's ruined. 

Yay.

Oh. My. Goodness.



I hate it when that happens. It ALWAYS happened to me before. And then the whiteboard won't erase and you get a smudgy, greasy mess.

Yep 

No doubt I'll get blamed for it too 

Most likley their combination cleaning method of magic eraser and 3M spray sticky solvent remover crap.