Classes, Advances, and High-Powered Machinery

1. Of course they have phone chargers at every table in the restaurant.
2. "Traditional Italian Trattoria"- Korean style
3. The insanity that is Peppero...
4. Make chocolate for one of Korea's many couple-inspired holidays
5. After church
6. Autumn- it's pretty. I haven't seen it in a few years.





Sometimes I walk into class loudly humming the intro to "Ice Ice Baby". Other times I use the Darth Vader anthem, "dun dun dun DUN dun dun DUN dun dun..." I learned a lot at CofC's school of education.

WHERE TO START? This is the question which has prevented me from writing for a few days. First off, I don't know who reads this. Secondly, nothing feels chronological.

All the lights in my apartment are off except for a vanilla candle pitifully burning the last few minutes of its life. Since it was almost $5 and is compact-sized, I've been pushing the centimeter-long wick around for days. Encouraging it to explore other parts of the bountiful wax that will never be melted. WHY are candles like that??

In the background, Leona is crunching her food. Last week I found out she had worms. I can assure you that Tuesday night was a test of my personal fortitude as I cleaned the poo off of my silk comforter and tried to shove it in the toilet-bowl sized washing machine. "Your cat is trying to tell you something," Google responded to my search, "Why did my cat poop on my bed?" Between uploading episodes of my new Japanese drama obsession (seasons 1 and 2 + movie finished at this point) and reluctantly eating cream cheese and crackers (I will NOT let this stop me from eating! I told myself), I was figuring out a way to get her to a Korean vet. I even found "worms" in my phrasebook and wrote it down. As luck would have it, and also as Korea is the most convenient country in the world, the puppy store in my apartment building doubles as a vet. The young man in a fancy suit spoke decent English (good for him- he's never studied abroad!) and gave my cat a shot. "LeoNA, LeoNAAA", the employees cooed as they tried to calm her down. She's as big as Garfield and she's as rude as Garfield. I am so amazed at their patience. Anyways. Let's hope THAT was cleared up.

Tomorrow I have yoga. That's why I should go to bed early. I started with Jamie last Friday. I couldn't find the one pair of shorts I brought to Korea (still can't) so I was a bit self-conscious of my black tights and Colorado t-shirt. Turns out there was no need to dress inconspicuously because the instructor made SURE to introduce me to the thirty other mom-aged women in the class AND call me out, by name, multiple times. "Au-du-ri! Right-uh arm-uh! Strong-uh hand-uh!" I did my best to scrutinize the women in front of me, as the Korean blended in with the piano-bird-chirping music she was playing. I had to be on my guard during the meditation- if I fell asleep- I was SURE to miss the wake-up call, because I didn't have the luxury of gently and slowly being brought out of my deep-forest zone or wherever you go in yoga. It was like one of those long prayers at church where you hang your head and stay focused on listening for 'amen'. I sat up straight, palms up, legs crossed, eyes squinted, peeping out once in a while to see if people were starting to move. I was sore Saturday. Therefore, it's worth it.

I finally committed to Korean class. My friend Thui (who studied Korean for months before she came here) brought Jamie and I to a tall building in a corner of the city on Sunday. She left us for her advanced class, and a kind woman ushered us into a small room with round tables. She sat us down and said something to us in Korean. We responded with the customary sheepish smile and shoulder shrug. The woman handed us a form and pointed to the time. 1:00. Nope, we shook our head, we need 3:00. She tilted her head and looked at us, concerned. She pointed to three, and gave us a questioning look. We gave a convicted nod and she nodded slowly, maintaining the look of concern. She started talking to us, all in Korean, and somehow taught us to say, "My name is ________, I am from ______, I am an English teacher, I live in _______, I teach English at _______." How she did this, I don't know. It was STRAIGHT out of one of those movies where a cowboy encounters a Native American, and after a lot of chest-pointing and stick-in-the-dirt writing, they're both fluent in each other's language. When Jamie and I ducked into the class 10 minutes later (and 30 minutes late) we clearly understood this woman's concern. I clutched my "Haha hoho Korean for migrant workers" book and opened it- to chapter six. The teacher flitted to and fro in front of the board, writing indecipherable characters, holding up flashcards, pouring water on her sleeve, picking up boxes. (Oh- miming vocabulary!) She is in her 50's, and wore a nametag that said "Korean teacher volunteer". I INSTANTLY understood how my students feel as I sat there, wide-eyed and CLUELESS. I do know that we learned how to express our competence in using power tools and textile equipment. I realized later that the class giggled because I said something along the lines of, "Yes, I know how to operate heavy machinery." Just like my students, I tuned in on the teacher's surprised expression, and belted out, "No, I don't know how" (In Korean!) When she disappeared from the classroom for a minute, my classmates and I exchanged names in hushed tones, like prisoners afraid of being heard. There were two men and a woman from Indonesia, a guy from Pakistan, and another man from Bangladesh. Turns out he speaks about six languages. Sigh, who the heck do we Americans think we are when we assert ourselves over foreigners? I'm SURE he didn't learn those languages in school! I am SO excited to have new friends, and I'm even more amazed at the opportunities God brings into my life.
The bottom line is- I had better learn Korean, and quick. We're doing chapter seven next week and I'm not about to look stupid again. I also don't want to stumble over my words as badly as I did yesterday. "Hangul is easy to read!" my Korean friends keep exclaiming. Oh... I am five years old and in Kindergarten again...

Church gets better every time because some people stay and get in 'cell groups' and talk afterwards. I feel so welcomed there and I'm making Korean friends which to me, a foreigner, isn't the easiest thing to do...

My friend Tommy and I went to an arcade on Saturday and shot a bunch of people using high-powered guns. He had to cut me off at about four games because I was spending all my money. We would have played DDR, except there was a pre-teen Korean in a sweat-soaked jumpsuit leaning back on the bar and moving his feet at a mind-blowing pace. We bought ice-cream cones from Baskin Robbins and meandered into the six-story (or more?) mall with them, ignoring the furtive, sometimes hostile glances they were eliciting. I browsed through Fendi bags, LaCoste polos, and Anna Sui perfume, licking my pumpkin-cheesecake cone innocently. I handed my cone to Tommy so I could find the price-tag on a cute leather jacket and before I could touch it, the saleslady had already come up from behind and slipped it on me. It was a nice camel-brown color, cropped, and so soft! I smiled and asked her how much it was in Korean. I didn't understand her response. (Who do I think I am, asking "how much?" in Korean when I don't know the numbers- not to mention all their currency is in thousands) I bowed and said thank you and we walked away. (I love bowing all the time. I'm going to look like quite a fool when I get back to the states). Tommy told me she said $350. WHAT?!? Maybe next time.

On Saturday night some of my friends and I had Indian food at Ansan Station (an area of town that most migrant workers live in- this is the last place four girls should go at night- but the food is so GOOD!) and some sketchy men kept passing us notes. The first one, left by a tall, tired-looking man holding a cigarette, read: "Do you want to do/make friendship. I am Korean people." Our giggling was not as muffled as it should have been. While we were paying to leave, he got a bit more bold and handed another one to Erin (the handwriting decidedly sloppier): "Do you want to make friendship. I Korean people. KISS. I love you". We left, stayed there long enough for Erin to almost get taken out by a woman on a bike (her squawk and three-foot-high leap had me laughing so hard I had a headache until I went to bed that night), bought some vegetables, and went home. It's not that we're in any danger, it's just that we're American (and Canadian), we laugh too much, our heads are uncovered, and there's not a dominating looking man holding us by the arm.

Everyone always asks me how my kids are and for some reason I don't know what to say. I think it's because they're so ridiculous it all blurs together. Today I taught the eight-year-olds "stop, drop, and roll". I brought Tom to the front. "STOP!" I yelled. He stood still, his arms stretched up. "DROP!" I shouted. He looked at me with uncertainty. "DROP!" I repeated. He fell to the ground. I squatted down. "NOW ROLL!" He tried to do a somersault. "No, no," I said through my laughter- "Like this"- and I rolled, in heels and a skirt, in the tiny space in front of the board. "WHAT?" he gasped. "ROLL!" all the boys shouted. He did a great job. It was like holding back tigers at the zoo during feeding time after that- all the boys were rushing to the front to practice. They were dying to stop drop and roll. Yes, I am making a difference. Maybe they won't burn to death.
In my middle school class, my other Tom (what is it with these Toms?) made a face during vocabulary-repetition that got me laughing so hard I had to step outside. I am laughing thinking about it now. I don't know, but added to his lisp and the way he screams out the words- "BUTH-UH! (bus) PINISH-EE! (finished) WEEEN-TAR! (winter)" this was too much. Somehow he had his chin tucked in his neck and his entire mouth stretched across his face like a puppet. I could not even say the next vocabulary words. "Teacher! Your face is red!" some of my girls exclaimed. I kept fanning myself and stepped outside the room to take a few deep breaths.
I'm not fit to be instructing children. I give them crossword puzzles after their tests (to keep them quiet while slackers finish) and the other day I decided to race all of them and do one myself. (My goodness- I'm so much quicker than I was in fourth grade! Skimming mountains of meaningless textbooks in college really has improved my word-search skills!) I commented on my progress every few words or so. "Ten. Fifteen. Cornucopia. Sixteen." I then looked up to see Jacob (age eight, a hopeless nose-picker) flicking his eyes back and forth between our papers and circling all the words I had. I then noticed he had his desk pushed up to the desk I was sitting at for the moment- optimal view. I thought he just wanted to be close to me.

I slept ten hours last night. Pure glory. I did keep waking up though because I was itching terribly. It was a mistake to be frugal and buy bar soap, even if it is Dove. Maybe it's my new $5 yoga pants. Either way. I'm going to try and go to bed.

Oh wait there's a bit more. People complain that I write too much but you try living in a place like this and see if you can paraphrase it. If I did, my entries would sound something like this, "Weird. Weird food. Weird people." ANYWAYS. There's this day, November 11- and it looks like this: 11/11. Of course they made a Holiday out of it. There are sticks here, called Pepero, and they're pretzel sticks dipped in chocolate. As Koreans are obsessed with couples, they have devised a different love-themed holiday from November until who knows when. There are boundless rows of pretzel sticks and decorating accessories in the stores. Banana, strawberry, vanilla flavored pretzel sticks. Heart-shaped, star-shaped, diamond-shaped sprinkles. Bar chocolate for melting. Kitten-shaped, heart-shaped, soccer-ball-shaped molds for molding. They are regular chocolatiers (it may or may not be a word in some language)- they will do anything for love- ANYTHING. So anyways. I put pictures of it here. The other enigma is the Italian restaurant I ate at last night. I still feel queasy thinking about it. I have never, I repeat EVER EVER seen colors like that save the decorations of my sister's early-nineties Barbie dream house. It was like a wedding, baby shower, Barbie Box in the mid-80's gone at Easter gone TERRIBLY wrong. Flowers and grapes hung from the ceiling, separated by tulle canopies. Some walls were bright orange, some pepto-bismol pink, others gigapet-frog green. Pop music played softly in the background and couples looked at each other lovingly over their crunchy garlic bread in the blinding doctor's-office light. We sat on pink-painted benches with pillows, I repeat pillows, decorated in roses and encircled by pink lace. "These colors are ridiculous!" I muttered while we were trying to make sense of the menu (Korean-Italian fusion has a high likelihood of going terribly wrong), and Michelle retorted "Look out the window." I took in the levels and levels of flashing neon lights, electricity stretched to its maximum capacity, glitter and sparkle shooting all over the place like a carnival, and then I reminded myself... this is Asia. With a sigh, I ordered my carbonara (in Korean, I was feeling quite confident after that class), and scarfed the whole thing down.