NICOLE MADE CARROT CAKE IN HER MAGICAL OVEN!! AHHH!!
It's Simba and Nala! I'ts Simba and Nala!
Maybe it's been too long?!? I don't know! I've been in Korea over seven months. I think this is the point at which I'm either too comfortable or having too much fun to sit down and reflect.
Well, I bought a ridiculous pair of shoes today. Why? Because I felt like it. The weather is still mehhh here, so my friends and I went shopping (we live so far from everything else), and would you believe it there's an underground shopping mall that's bigger than a normal above-ground one. Also, they are everywhere. Everything's cheap, tacky, and poorly made. Underground, shops are all lined up, sometimes smelling of the kimchi that was just consumed for dinner, the owners meandering around as throngs of people just walk in and out. I've yet to find a place that isn't crowded in Korea. The same thing is everywhere, meaning that as soon as you buy something, you wonder if you could have bought it for cheaper at the store beside it. When I first got to Korea, it was really overwhelming, but... it's really helped me realize that stuff is just stuff and who cares if you have a lot of it. Heels are outside of shops, stacked high on racks, with laces, zippers, gemstones, fake leather jackets hang like dominoes about to push over onto the ground, jeans are smashed together in long rows of various shades of stone-washed blue, some shredded up, most too small for me to fit into, floral-patterned dresses that back home could be for a nightgown or a grandma hang on the walls, fake leather bags dangle off of hooks like a huge pleather rainbow... it's a mess. And of course, we're getting stared at so much that it won't really matter what I buy, because I'll be an object of attention anyways. I didn't see a single other foreigner tonight. It's so easy to find my friends!
I don't know if I've mentioned that there are as many cosmetics here as there are clothes. Today my friend wanted Clinique makeup, and so we went in a mall, and downstairs it was just completely makeup counters- did you know Swarovsky makes makeup?!? Shimmering glass counters countaining Japanese, German, American, British pastel eye colors and mascara, a thousand shades of red lipstick, all so expensive I would never buy it. When you go outside, however, there are ten other makeup stores, all cheaper, all with variations of the same things, the same whitening cream for your skin, more nailpolish colors than I ever thought possible, bottles and bottles of perfume and lotion...
Aghhh!! Well, this is Korea through the eyes of a female. I miss the beach, I miss hiking, seeing blue skies, wearing flip flops, sitting underneath trees, having picnics...
Nothing profound has happened, except that I have fallen in love with my class of little kids. It makes me want to open an orphanage. It makes me want to be a kindergarten teacher. Theodore wanders around the room, erases the board for me, holds my hand while I'm practicing the alphabet with them, proudly shows me his pencil every time he remembers to bring it, Christina puts her finger over her mouth every minute to show me how quiet she can be, Clint has hair that's so wild I can never smooth it down. And then there's Martin, slumped over my lap when we're all sitting on the floor, content to be bad enough to where I'll pull him over and keep him under my arm, with Steven on the other side, pulling on my pantyhose and saying "stocking, stocking", and James, blurting out "HUR" every time he's surprised. (This is my favorite form of Korean onomatopoeia, there's no English equivalent, it's kind of like "wow" but much more versatile). One of the Korean counselors observed my class last week, and afterwards she said, "I don't know how you handle it. I would have slapped all of them." I think adjusting is the only way to handle chaos like that, because I remember feeling exhausted after watching my friend's kindergarten class of only an hour. But I'm just so PUMPED when some of them are spelling words- kids who didn't even know the alphabet before, and when they learned "I'm hungry, I want a ___" at lightning speed when I pulled out a bag of candy.
Have I mentioned, no, I haven't, that the class of older kids I had has practically died out, and last Tuesday it was just Jin (14) and I, for three hours, with an American history book. Well, let's just say we spent almost all of the class eating candy, 30 minutes of him teaching me Korean (SO helpful!), we made origami birds, made crossword puzzles for each other and solved them, and talked about cowboys. I am shocked that I'm getting paid to do this. My boss is always complaining about us, it's new every day, but I just wonder... why haven't you picked up on the fact that it's absurd that Jin and I are chillin' for 3 hours? Of course we did the lesson, but with one student, it moves rather swiftly...
Luckily, on Thursday, Tom (the OTHER student, yes, it's a class of two, except for when Katrina comes in for the last 20 minutes from time to time) was present, and so we chewed gum (my rule is if you have gum, you'd better bring me some- BAD teacher I know), watched Bonanza, and played Catchphrase. Tom announced he'd be missing a day next week to study for a big test and Jin exploded in AHHH!! and covered his face in his hands. Poor thing. It is bizarre to have to be around your teacher for three hours.
It might be interesting to note that my school is not unlike toilet paper being flushed down the toilet. Most of this could be due to my manager who doesn't bother to recruit new teachers, replace broken equipment, be kind to parents and staff, or advertise the academy. There were times in the past two weeks that I felt legitimately nervous about losing my job and watching our school die like a sick African animal. It may or may not go up in flames. We try to be positive, hope for the best, and listen to Beyonce in between classes to dull some of the stiffness of the work environment. I swear every day I am thanking Jesus for this whole joy thing, because without it, I'd be a really worried person. Like my mom says, you just have to laugh! You just have to laugh that there are pictures of eight teachers hanging up in the lobby (three who left the school over a year ago) to give a semblance of a full staff, two of the five of us are leaving in two months, among two Korean staff (excluding the manager) one quit a couple weeks ago, and the other is leaving in three weeks, and the new Korean girl (who Meagan and I are trying to cheer up) is being treated like a slave by our boss. She's not allowed to eat dinner (she works from 2-8), and is often left alone when our boss disappears for who knows what reasons. You have to laugh that of two computers, one shuts down unpredictably, flashing a black screen and a red "NO SIGNAL," and the other often hums like a lawnmower. The copying machine BEEP BEEP BEEPS every few copies, because it gets jammed, and if it's not jammed, it's printing out pages that are more wrinkled than a Basset hound. I'm sure we kill SO MANY trees, and I feel guilty about it, but I have a personal vendetta against that beast (we all do) and more than once we've dreamed of Office Space-ing it. Our boss reprimanded us for coming in on time (clock in five minutes early- he said, even though we come in two hours early to plan), for speaking to each other, for planning in the teacher's room, for correcting essays at school, then for not correcting essays promptly (could it be because we are always at work and are forbidden to work at work?) and I just wonder what will come next. "No more eating. No more using paper. No more using the computer. No more going to the bathroom. All bodily functions NO NO NO." He gave Meagan a dirty look on Friday because she was eating. We work from 2-10. Ahh... the guys and I have been studying 1 Peter together, there's so much about submission and respect for authority, it is so timely, I am being tested so much-ly, ahhhhhhhhhhh.......
In spite of all of this I love my co-workers and I love my students. My co-workers are all crazy, and my students are all hilarious. In one of my classes they had to start writing lines if they didn't do their homework, and it went something like this- "Did you do your homework? Did you do your homework? Did you do your homework? AHHHHHH!!!!! OH NO!!!! I CAN'T FIND MY WORD LIST!!!!! AHHH MY HAND!!!!" They have gotten so much better about remembering to bring stuff though. Wednesday, Max (who is most certainly ADHD, but since diagnosing that sort of thing here puts it in your record for eternity and makes you a social outcast and prohibits you from getting any kind of successful job- preventing anyone from dealing with it), busted out a bag of chocolate when I discovered he hadn't done his homework. How conflicted I felt inside, watching Max write "Organization is a lovely and important skill" 50 times, as I munched on the pink and yellow and milk chocolate chips he so generously poured into my hand. GAHH, I hate discipline. Luckily, he's gotten really fast at writing (this, the fruit of never doing your homework) and so he finished in time to play vocabulary hangman. I also taught most of my girls to hold a baseball bat and swing at a pitch the other day (they had never done it). We used an umbrella and some balled-up paper.
The thing about teaching is that something hilarious happens every five minutes, but your brain is so warped from trying to keep everything under control that you get home and forget it all. You remember that you had a strange day, but you can't remember why. Some people tell me they bet I'll have great stories, and I do, but I'm so tired I've forgotten them all. I just remember that I love my job and I see their cute little faces, and really wish I could adopt Martin. He's five and lives with his dad, and like most of the kids, really wants and needs attention. One of my eleven year old girls held my hand for half of a grammar lesson the other day. I wrote on the board with one hand and she sat at her desk and held the other. Then there's Lewis, who I've told you about, who thinks girls are despicable, but he is starting to change, and his making fun of everyone is slowly morphing into making fun of himself as well, and I can tell he's so proud when the girls burst out laughing at him, and all of his gruffness disappears when I ask him what he's doing this weekend after class lets out. I told most of my kids about Easter and why we celebrate it, although they seemed more shocked at the plastic snap-apart eggs filled with candy and a rabbit who brings it to you, than they did about Jesus' crucifixion. Nevertheless, beforehand there were probably about three students who knew why we celebrate Easter.
I'm studying Korean from time to time, and I've started watching this absolutely addictive Korean drama- I like to think I'll learn the language through osmosis while I'm reading the English subtitles, and now I can say things like, "How much is this, Where is the ___, Why didn't you do your homework, My house disappeared, Go away, Enjoy your meal, suction cup, and tree sloth." If I stayed another year and went to school I could learn the language. I don't think I'll be staying another year though, because this lack of trees and natural beauty is killing me a little bit. Tonight while shoe shopping the girl working at the store got really flustered when she couldn't understand my friend, I heard her call herself stupid in Korean, and her face turned bright red. I felt TERRIBLE. So I busted out my Korean and said, "I'm sorry, Korea don't know." She replied, "English don't know!!!!" (rather passionately), and I said, "It's ok", to which she nodded but I could tell was mad at herself for. Well good grief. It's ok you don't speak English. People like her make me want to stay here. Stay here and learn Korean so I can tell her it's ok she can't speak English. I think wherever I am I definitely want to be reassuring people that it's ok they can't speak English.
ANYWAYS, I always think there's nothing to say and then so much comes out, that's the consequences of always losing my voice and not wanting to talk (thanks pollution and thirty hours of nonstop talking a week), and never stopping to write. Whew!
Also, if you pray, please pray for my best friend Meredith's mom, she had a stroke and she's in the hospital and I'm so worried about her.
K bye!!!
This only begins to express the awkwardness we sometimes feel at work.
Yes, it was an impulse buy, and no, I don't regret it.
I love my coworkers! I have Bible study with these boys!
Summer and I accidentally dressed couple style... have I been here too long....
That cat looks like a fox.
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