Life in general

Been practicing for this hapkido thing. I started seeing signs for "Daegu sports for all festival" around town. On the sign was Daegu gwang yuk she she bum dan which is the team that I am on. That was cool to be able to see that. Every weekend we practice. Last weekend we practiced outside in this park and we had a crowd around us. I went to do my jump dive roll thing. It was over 14 people, but I didn't have enough speed and I landed on the last dude that was kneeling down and bounced off and landed on my back. Somehow the only thing I hurt was my ankle. I took it easy the rest of the day. In addition to this show we have to do this stupid dance. It's some hapkido punch move dance but it's still not that fun. It's the same thing over and over again for like 20 mins.

This weekend was a long one though, and I made it even longer. My wisdom teeth are acting up and my face is swollen so i'm going to the dentist today after I took the day off. 10 sick days to go before i'm out. I plan on using all of them, but strategically. So in 20 mins i'm going to the dentist to find out what the deal with my wisdom teeth is and then I need to buy a can opener for the tuna fish I bought a week ago and just tried to make last night...but couldn't open.

This weekend I got a 4 day vacation coming up so I wanna hit a beach town if I don't go to seoul for a job interview. Might be getting a university job. Hope I do it's a sick deal. Keep ya'll updated.

Hapkido fight

This was my first fight. My opponent happened to be a 3rd dan black belt. My kwan jang nim was yelling at the t.v screen when I played this for him. There were two obvious points I should have gotten, and the other guy got 1 or 2 too many. I probably would have lost anyway which isn't a problem for my first time against someone with a lot of skill...but it really pissed me off that the ref didn't give me any points whatsoever. I land a left side kick to the guys pad. And one of those take downs was clean a fast. Like I said, not one point. Oh well. There WILL be a next time. Watch for yourselves.


i'm in the black

The Daegu City Hapkido Exhibition Team

This is one of the things I did this past sunday. I had the dive roll competition (gold medal, in this video there are 13 people on the floor when I dive, HOT), this exhibition show, and my first Hapkido fight which I will be posting soon.

My days

My days always start the same. I wake up, which is a good thing, brush my teeth and eat lunch. I get on my motorcycle and ride to school. When I get there all the students are outside of the side door changing their shoes into their slippers for school. There is basically a driveway that goes around the side and the steps right there connecting it. There are probably about 50 students outside the door blocking the entire driveway every morning at the time I get into school. The first task is to navigate through the main gates of the school with all the parents stopping short in their cars and double parking. It's a hell of a path to make my way through when there is 2 tons of steel moving erratically all over the place. Once I get through the main gate and the little patches of midget kids I get to the packed driveway. I beep my horn a couple of times and they hear my motorcycle. The first couple of times I did this they just looked up and got so excited that I was there and they saw me all I would see were little black eyes staring me down and huge smiles all yelling "JAY-KUH TEACHER!!" After a couple of weeks they finally got the idea that I wasn't beeping to say hi to them, but to get through them. After that realization it became clock work. I would beep, and just like Moses I would part the sea. Except this wasn't the red sea, this was the Korean sea...and it wasn't water but children. When I beep some of them would be changing their shoes and literally grab them before they could put them on and dive out of my way. Then from the ground they would still wave and yell hello to me. No matter what I do the saying hello part will never go away. Even if I walk into the bathroom to wash my hands and the little kids are peeing, they will turn towards me and say hello. One kid even went to wave to me and ended up peeing on himself because he forgot he was doing something. I wish they had a teachers bathroom. The urinals are in plain view of the hallway and the classroom across from the bath room. I try to pee when there will be no children there like during class. There is a sliding door that closes, but when the kids come in to use the bathroom they open the door and leave the door open. When they leave the don't close the door either. You can imagine how weird it was to be peeing during class and have a kid walk in to begin with...now take this same situation but have that student leave the sliding door open while other students and teachers are walking by, then come right up next to you and start peeing when the rest of the urinals are not occupied just so he can say hello and tell his friends he pissed next to the way gook (foreigner). SSSSOOOOO after I park my bike and a couple more kids dodge me driving, I walk up to my office and start my day. My favorite days are when I get my 5th graders. I love them. I hate my 6th grade but I don't work so hard for them.

The last two days I had no class cause my 6th graders went on a 2 day field trip. Tomorrow there is some election so there is no school. I have Hapkido practice early in the morning though so it's the same as waking up for school. Bummer. The reason I have Hapkido practice is because I made it onto the Daegu city exhibition team. We have a show at the world cup stadium May 23rd so we have to practice for that every weekend. It's time consuming but I suppose it will be worth it all. Along with practice for the show I have my first fighting tournament coming up this sunday. I have been cutting weight and I believe I will make it for this saturdays weigh in. I am very excited and nervous all at the same time. I am competing in the dive rolling competition, doing a mini exhibition show with my gym's exhibition team, and then after lunch I fight. It's going to be a long day but I hope a rewarding one...both in experience and colors of medals. Just got back from practice and decided to write a little bit. I have friends coming over this weekend and staying with me to watch my tourny on Sunday so I have to clean up. And I smell like balls...I got work to do. Stay good if you are, and get better if your not.

5K's and 2-a-days

After vacation, I found out that I gained back a little bit of the weight that I lost. I also found out that I will be fighting in my first tournament on April 13th. The weight groups go as follows. 75-80 kg's (165-176lbs) and 80-85 kg's (176.1-187). When I was told that I weighed 84.5kg's...that is just about 185lbs. The 80-85 group is named "super heavyweight." Which is funny to think that I would be fighting in that group. The 75-80 group is just the heavy weights. Just like in wrestling, it's a better idea to wrestle at a lower weight if you can get there safely. My plan was, in the month of March all the way to April 13th, to go to two Hapkido classes and then go to the gym and run 5 km's. Mix that with assorted weights and you get one hell of a workout. Losing 10 pounds ain't nothing. Bad news. At the end of Feb I re-hurt my right leg. A couple of months before I left for Korea, at work, I was dancing and I essentially ripped my right hamstring. You can bet it was hurt by doing some funky bad-ass white boy move. But it took about 3 months to heal to the point where it wouldn't hurt anymore. For some time after the 3 months, while I would sit down too long, or be driving my knee would start to hurt. I can only imagine that problem was from my hamstring. Finally it got better. So doing some move in Hapkido I hurt it again. I was hoping that it would be better then next day or in a couple of days. It wasn't. The whole time it felt like crap all over again. Sitting down for more than 30 mins was painful and kicking anything was out of the question. I could barely practice let alone run. It took about a week for it to feel good enough to run again, so since last week I have been doing the 5 K's. I went to a sauna this weekend and that seemed to work wonders. I was actually able to work with my right leg a little today. Since last week I have dropped from 85kg's (185) to 82kg's (180). I WILL be at weight by the time April rolls around, I have no doubt about that. 5 more pounds is kid's shit.

The one good thing is that when my right leg was hurt, after 2 or 3 days I was able to work with my left leg. I was exclusively practicing with my left leg for over a week. I have to say, I am a lot better with my left leg than I was before I started this forced regiment. That is really good because most Koreans mainly use their right leg, and train in defense for a right legged kick. Hopefully I will be able to surprise them and knock 'em out. That would feel good, reallllly good:) I think next week i'll be at full strength again, and ready to get into sparing to properly train for my tournament. I was, and will be sparing with this 6' 1" monster Korean dude. Long freaking legs. For now, I just have to constantly remind myself to stay calm and take it easy. Hope all is well in America or wherever your from. It was 45-50 degrees the last couple of days. So literally and figuratively things are heating up on my side of the world. Later ya'll.

Back at it again

My school started up again last week. That would be monday the 3rd just in case if you happened to be thinking, "hmmm what was the date last week?" Glad I could be of service. Anyway, I'm still teaching the 5th and 6th grade classes. The semester is stacked like it was last semester except for my fridays. Every day I have 4 classes but on friday, what use to be the greatest day in the world, I now have 5 classes. So that is 4 before lunch and 1 after. It's not soo bad but oh well. It does mean that they can only give me 3 hours of extra classes to do instead of the possible 4 they could give me last year since I only have to work a max of 24 hrs a week in class time. They still make me sit at my desk for 4 hrs after my classes are finished. I'm suppose to be doing work, but I really, and still, don't have any. So what do I do? Well sometimes I read, sometimes I look stuff up, sometimes I bull shit with co-workers. But the rest of the time I play games or watch internet T.V. I use to try to hide it, the fact that I don't do anything...but now every single person in the whole school knows it so what's the point? I'm the resident foreigner, I DO WHAT I WANT! This is the same reason I have been riding my motorcycle around Korea without a license plate. If the cops pull me over i'll just speak English to them and they will get so frustrated that they will just tell me to leave. They are mostly little rich kids that are trying to dodge their military obligation. Their parents tell them to become cops and that takes the place of their service. It's so funny. You will see a platoon of police officers walking down the street two by two and any where from one pair to half of them will be holding hands. It's probably the funniest thing I have ever seen. How are you suppose to take them seriously? Although...with my luck i'll get the one cop who speaks fluent English. BUT WAIT! I'M PREPARED! I can just play stupid and say that the guy that sold me the bike told me that 125cc's and under don't need plates. OH GOD! A GENIUS I AM! Back to my school talk.

Last week started a new semester, so the 5th grade (that I hated to no end) are now my 6th graders, and the 4th graders from last year are my new 5th graders. I can't tell you how much I love the 5th graders. They are all so small and cute and soooo eager to learn. And if they aren't eager to learn they sure do a good job of faking it. Unfortunately I still hate my 6th graders. Even the first day of class for them they still do the old "talk while Jake is talking, he doesn't care" thing. Guess what, I CARE. I basically decided to tell them that if they behaved and listened and stayed quite they would have more fun, because I would be willing to make more interesting and fun lessons for them. Otherwise we could just work out of the book and it can be boring. I really hope they took that under consideration because my 6th grade co-teacher is sooo much better at English and we can make it so much more fun for them. I heard from other teachers at the end of last year that the 4th grade is so pleasant to work with, but I didn't want to get my hopes up. That description is right on. I just hope it lasts and they aren't behaving just because it's the first week. For this year I'm giving all of them English names. Side note: My co-teacher put Elf as one of the names on the list, for some reason the girls love it. When they ask me if they can have that name I try not to laugh. But it's always the cutest and smallest girl that asks so it's kinda fitting.....Back: one of the girls was trying to ask me how to say a name that was on the list so she looks at me, holds the paper up, and says to me in a Korean accent and under a cute little face, "teacher speak English." I started laughing. I always say that to them. This was the first time a student said it to me. I knew what she meant but I found it incredibly funny. After I gave them all names I told them we would work on pronunciation.

I now now longer let them call me Jay-Kuh (even though I have kinda grown fond of it. That rule might give out soon.) I told them to resist the urge to put a vowel sound on the end of everything they say. I began to tell them, "It's not Jay-kuh anymore, it's Jake. This is not English-e class anymore, it's English. This is not a desk-uh anymore it's a desk. Do you understand??" They all agreed. I then asked them, "so what is my name?" One 5th grade, was incredibly excited and yelled out "DESK!" He realized he said desk instead of Jake and immediately slammed his head down on the desk as everybody erupted in laughter. Basically, I love my 5th graders and I hate my 6th graders. I'm buying a BB gun and I am going to shoot everyone who talks. I'VE HAD ENOUGH and it's only the 2nd week of school. The funny thing is that I won't get in trouble for doing that...still might be a bad idea though.

Broken tailbones and bruised egos

I know that I was just on vacation...a couple of times with in the last month an 1/2...but i'm not on vacation again. Saturday morning I left with a bunch of friends to go up north to a town called Gang Nueng. It's a smaller city about 4 hrs north of Daegu by bus. It gets a lot colder up there and it gets snow! My friend Emily lives up there and told me I could stay at her apt with a couple of friends even though she was in Japan. She rocks. I also have another friend that lives up there who I haven't seen in a while. We got a little bit of a late start and arrived in Gang Neung around 1pm. We settled in and got something to eat. Only 3 of the 9 people stayed with me in the apt, the rest of them got an ondel room. Which is like a big room with no beds. The floor is heated and there are blankets and pillows for everyone. When we were eating they went to find a hotel. They showed up at the end of dinner and we made our way out. The girls went straight to the mountain. Some of the guys had to rent all the stuff and I had to rent just boots. We took a bus about 10 mins outside of Yong Pyong (where the actual mountain is) and I called the number of a rental place that Emily gave to me. They spoke JUST enough english to communicate. They arrived at the bus station and took us to the shop. When we arrived we got our stuff sorted out easy enough. The owner was a trip though. He was this 5 foot 8 guy wearing tight leather pants, a tucked in black turtle neck, a bright red leather jacket and this shiny bling bling necklace that sported 2 BIG globe shaped things, all topped off with the thickest black rim glasses I have ever seen. I really had to try not to laugh. Since we were renting for two days, and me for 3, he was going to give us a discount. I think laughing in his face would ruin our chances of a better discount. After everything was settled we got there about an hour earlier then we needed to and waited till 6:30 to get out tickets and go. It was great. Nobody on the slopes and the snow wasn't that icy. Most of my friends were first or second timers but my friend Terry could keep up with me. We basically did the whole night. One of the last shuttles was 10:40 so we met the guy at 10:10, gave him our equipment to take back, and took the free shuttle straight from the mountain back to Gang Nueng. Emily's shower didn't work so we went to the family mart to ask the person if there was a sauna around. BINGO! Got him to write the name down, went there, hit up the hot tubs and steam rooms, and took a shower. We made our way back to the apt for an early wake up.

The second day we mostly like the first except it was day time. Finished up a longer day of boarding. We went from 10 to 4:30 and it showed on my friends faces. Like all beginners they bruised their tail bones and their egos...but at least they had fun doing so. We again hit up the sauna. Right after my friends got on the bus and went home sunday night. They had to work in the morning. I on the other had, like I said before, was on vacation. I met up with my friend Cathrine, who lives up there, and had a couple of drinks. I made plans to snowboard with here in the evening the next night.

Basically went night skiing one last time. I was very impressed with cat. Probably the best chick snowboarder that I know, she kept up nicely. After that, one last shuttle ride back, one last sauna, and one last night in the apt. Next morning I woke up and took the bus back to Daegu.

I start my language exchange today...I think...with a friend of mine. I teach her better English because it's pretty good already, and she'll teach me more Korean. I can only do it for an hour maybe once or twice a week since I have a Hapkido tournament on April 13th. I have to lose about 6 pounds before then so i'm not in the "super" heavy weight division. It's funny that i'm around 185 pounds and that is SUPER heavy. What little people.

The plan for the day: Lounge around for a little more. Meet My friend for some lessons. Go to Hapkido. Go to the gym. Go downtown to meet up with friends for a birthday. Go to communes and meet up with the Philippino band and sing "Let It Be" by the Beatles with them at the bar. Gotta love open mic night.

The final day, thoughts, and Thailand, back to Korea

/>ATTENTION: THERE ARE TWO POSTS PREVIOUS TO THESE. I would say read them first.


The final day I woke up. My chest and shoulders were in pain because I was dropped basically on my face. We packed up and met downstairs in the restaurant. We decided together over food what school to give the fund raising money to and what to get them. We decided to give it to one school and hire someone to oversee the building of a new school, with new stuff. Why would you give one school a sea-saw and one school a new fence when that doesn't help with eduaction. You give one school all the money and help every kid who goes through that school have a better learning environment. I think that is the best way to do things.

After that we got on the bus back to Chennai to fly home. The ride was 18 hours on a sleeper bus...long. Before that we were able to go to "the point" and see where three seas combine. The Aribian sea, The Indian Ocean, and the Bay of Bengal. That was really cool. Got on the bus stopped for lunch and went straight on through over night back to Chennai.

MY THOUGHTS:
This was the craziest thing I have ever done. Two foreign people racing a rickshaw over 600 miles for 10 days down the southeast coast of India. I can't believe I had the opportunity to do this. On any normal vacation you worry about what time should we wake up and what should we see. This vacation was, hey wake up and try to survive the day so that you might be able to wake up the next day. The whole trip we broke down 5 times, almost died 35 times, I hit a bus, might have killed a dog, gave out school supplies, broke numerous things off of the rickshaw, and got recognized in the street because Art and I became superstars. It was the most amazing thing in the world.



After India we flew to Thailand and got on a bus right away that took us to a ferry. We took the ferry to an island called Ko sam met. It was sun, sand, and scuba for the next 4 days. I had to go back home cause I started English camp that monday. Once I got back I took the longest shower ever and fell asleep quite quickly.


NEXT MISSION: GET ON THE AMAZING RACE!

India day 2 to the party

The second day started out like the first. Try to get out of a busy busy city, and try to get the the end checkpoint before it got dark. The second day we finally got our rickshaw. It was Red #25. I requested an orange rickshaw but at least they spelled our team name right. Art and I took turns driving and divided it up by distance. Every day I started out driving he would end driving. We were a good team. We only broke down like 5 times. A couple of the times we were close enough to a town either to be, pushed back by another team, or to push it back manually to get a part. Sometimes you could pay someone to take their mo-ped into town and bring you back the part for the local mechanic to install. If you weren't close to a town you could call the dispatcher on the pre-paid phone they gave us to use and the mechanics that traveled with the ralley would come and fix us where ever we might be. If they touched it there was a 200 rupee service charge no matter what...we tried not to have them help us out. The stuff that broke for the most part wasn't anything major. The first time it was the clutch wire, then the accelerator wire. The next break was a little bigger...it was a piece of the cluth. At one point our crank shaft cover screws came out and the thing was open. It was a little costly. I have to say gas and maintainence was the biggest expense. But still wasn't that much. We carried with us spare bottles of oil and gas in the "trunk" in case we ran out. We never knew because there wasn't a gas guage...or a speedometer...or for that matter a front head light, horn, or turn signal etc. Our rickshaw was still the fastest out of all of them. We ended up being first a bunch of times and techincally should have won. They don't pick the winner on that basis though. It's really whoever is best for their publicity. But like I said before we left, I wasn't going to win.

Around the 4th day Art and I started to hang out with the documentary crew that was there to cover the whole race. The t.v channel was called SS Music which was the equivelent of MTV. The face for the documentary was named Gibran. A cool guy that was fluent in English. We started hanging out a lot and he eventually told us that 1)The article he was writing for this english magazine was going to be about us. And 2)The documentary he was filming was going to be focused on us. It was like over night a star was born. They would follow us in their mini-van and do interviews with us during the day and after we hit the end check point. It was fun. During one of the first days they were traveling with us they stopped us at the school we were suppose to visit. Everyday we visited a school and played with the kids, handed out supplies and stuff like that. So we were in first place so we weren't surprised when we stopped and no one was there. We saw the kids inside looking out there windows and smiling, obviously excited that there were white people and video cameras there. We did the opening of us walking into the school while being interviewed and once through the gates the producer (gopi) whispers to us, "Yoooo wrong school!!!" We immediatly waved to the kids and jumped in our auto and drove away. It was soooooo funny but I felt so bad for those kids.

After about the 5th day we got to the end checkpoint after another day of trying to survive the madness. After the arrival and taking pictures with the whole group of racers for the local paper we were requested by the radio station that interviewed us the first time. "HELLO 106.4" This was a different area but the same station. They brought us to the radio station and we went in. We had our second live broadcast. The whole show was for about an hour so we just chilled and took phone calls. Went out, had dinner, went back and passed out.

The second to last day I have to say was probably the coolest. One of the challenges was to go about 30km's off of the track and check out a waterfall. The road up to the waterfall was windy and steep and up a mountain. No guard rails and a steep drop awaited us if I fucked up. We got up the mountain in one piece and saw the waterfall. There were monkey's everrrrrryyyywhere. I had a stick with me already to beat monkey's off the rickshaw because they had a habit of jumping onto the rickshaw and stealing whatever they could even while we were moving. We took all our valuables and walked to the waterfall where we found a chain that led under the waterfall. We had to get under it. The t.v crew was with us so they watched our shit and we went under. It was soooo refreshing and cold and amazing and AWESOME! After a little bit we walked back to the rickshaw. From the radio station they gave us a HUGE bag full of business cards with sucking candies stapled to them. We left that in the rickshaw because it wasn't valuable. We got back from the waterfall and the cards were ALL over the place with not one sucking candy left in any of the wrappers. Damn monkey's.

After all that we got to the end checkpoint and after the next day, which was thefinal day of the race, they threw a party for us in a really nice hotel (which was included with the entry fee so we got to stay in a place that actually had hot water!). It was all you can drink, all you can eat, all you can party. They gave out awards and announced the winners. I think we got something like 4th place out of 26 teams. Our award was the "wow I can't believe they are still alive" award. We had a reputation, know what i'm saying? After that ceremoney we continued drinking. Sometimes in the evening 9 people decided to grab me and try to throw me in the pool. I couldn't escape and started yelling that I had my passport and cell phone in my pocket. My teammate Art said "I'll help you!" Then proceeded to only take the stuff out of my pocket so I could be deposited into the pool. I stopped fighting because each appendage had a person or two on it, it was a losing battle. All at once they counted to three and realeased me into the air! Sadly they got a lot of upward motion but no foward motion. I landed smack on the concrete with only my face hitting the water. They fucked up! I stood up and grabbed the first person I could and launched us into the pool. My chest felt like I was dropped on it! What a night.

India and Thailand trip. First couple of days.

What's up Yall. Hope ur still checking this blog out, it's been a while since my last post. I came back from India and went straight into 2 weeks and 3 days of english camp. I haven't been that busy all year. After that I went into vacation and I was too busy relaxing so I had no desire what-so-ever to write. Today is my first day back at school and there are no classes so here goes nothing.

INDIA AND THAILAND:

The YouTube video below should say it all but just incase your left wondering about more i'll give you a quick run down of that adventure.

We flew into Bangkok, Thailand and Art was able to scar me for life. There is this famous district called Papong. It's where all the hookers gather and all the dirty old men go to get the hookers that have gathered. It's great cause you can see the ugliest fattest old man walking around with the smalled and cutest girl. Quite amazing. It is also the capital of the world for what they call a "Ping pong show." I kinda figured out what it was before Art told me he HAD TO take me to one but I played dumb since I was kinda curious. We got there at it was EXACTLY what I thought. These girls were doing things with certain parts of their bodies that I could never even imagine. They opened bottle caps, they blew out candles, they shot fruits (at me), they popped balloons with projected darts, they even did that clown trick where he pulls tied hankerchefs out of his mouth...except not with her mouth. I don't think I laughed that hard in a while. After that we sat down to a nice steak dinner...You might ask how could I be hungry after that...No idea. We were only in Bangkok for one night. The next morning we went to India.

We got there and took an autorickshaw, or auto/tuk tuk for short, straight to the training area. People were already there for a day or two and we arrived right as they started. It was basically a really big go cart course where they let us all go balls out and just learn the ropes. The gears, unlike a motercycle, and clutch are operated with your left hand. The throttle was the right hand, and the brake was with the foot. One person in the front and 2 could fit in the back. I did however see about 12 people packed into one auto in the streets of India, as well as about 5 people on a mo-ped. After our first experience of almost dying we got ready for the next morning.

The first day was a big event. Press all over the place and racers getting ready for the race. Our rickshaw was not there during the training day and actually broke down on the way to the venue area for the start. We were allowed to use the directors rickshaw which was pretty diesle. To start off with it was painted like a zebra. It was faster than the rest, and inside it had a sound system and a p.a system. They gave us all a sheet with the distances (which were wrong) and the town names that we should look for. Also on the sheet were challenges that were worth various points. Such as "give us the names of the god's that the malapuram temple was dedicated too." This was a really cool part of the race because it made everyone stop and see the attractions of that area. The flags went up and we were off. Once we started my teammate and I realized that we didn't know how to get out of the city. By luck we saw a sign and an arrow. We did it, out of the city. At our first check point we were approached by a guy from a radio station and he asked us to do a live broadcast. We said "HELL YEAH!" After our first celebrity appearence we left and wanted to stop for lunch so we pulled over in the middle of an open road at this little shack and ate the most delicious food ever and yes, I used my hands! I have to say that was my favorite part of India. Chowing down with your fingers in even the fanciest restaurants was a trip. WHO NEEDS A FORK! After a long day of rocking the roads of Tamil-Nadu we made it to the end-of-day check point. The checkpoint was always the hotel that most of the people were staying at. Weeks before the race even started they offered us a package for about 500 bucks and you get the nice hotels and good accomodations. 500 BUCKS!!!??? YEAH RIGHT! They also offered a budget package for 250. Still, hell no. Me and Art roughed it and found our own hotels...or should I say rooms. They were really never more than 3 or 4 dollars a night and worth every penny. It was a room with a bed. We didn't need nice places. The other days pretty much went the same way.

Day 1 sum up: Ran over a coconut, almost died. Almost hit a truck. I hit a bus. 1 radio broadcast. came in first place. Couldn't wait for day 2.

LUNCH TIME. WILL WRITE MORE AFTER I'M DONE.