Four Months

As temperatures start to climb into the upper double-digits on the Celsius thermometer, it appears I have survived the Korean winter as well as the first third of my Asian sabbatical. The snow's been gone for ages but kids are finally starting to put away their Napoleon Dynamite snowboots. The evenings are getting longer. Flower stalls are showing up on the street more often than those selling neck warmers. It's tough to grasp the fact that soon I'll experience Korea without the filter of my mittens, scarf and coat. My friends, co-teachers and students probably won't recognize me when I'm not wearing the coat that has so far been my Korea Uniform.

My vocabulary is expanding gradually and I've even received some compliments on my pronunciation. "I'm hungry" and "I'm full" are now at the top of my most-used phrases list, followed by "awesome!" and "bullshit!" Another phrase is super useful for when people tell you their age or how much something costs: "It can't be!/That doesn't make sense!/No way!"

I'm settling into teaching more and more - it's a challenge to find suitable activities when the students' abilities vary so greatly: There are many who can barely mumble "How are you"; some students who surprise me with things like, "Teacher, she [girl giggling in the next desk] wanted me to tell you that she thinks you have a big nose"; and then the kind of kid who will say, "Happybirthdaytoyou," or "Oh my God," at random during class. Awesome shirt of the day goes to a sixth-grader in a sweatshirt that said in a simple font: "DOUBLE UNIQUE." Runner up: the sixth-grader whose t-shirt bore an American flag and the words "Boston, Massachubatts."

This Sunday I started off my fifth month with the pleasure of being taken on a movie/lunch date with a teacher from my school and her neice. Ann, a second-grade teacher, knows some basic English and took a liking to me when she was wearing soju goggles at a teacher dinner a few weeks ago. Giggly 18-year-old Kelly has pretty advanced English and wants to be a flight attendant. I was looking forward to seeing the 3D Disney film known around here as "Rapunzel" - a 100-minute break from all things Korean. But because I'm such a lucky soul, Ann had accidentally bought tickets to a dubbed showing. So instead it was like any other day: trying to glean meaning from context and catching one word or phrase out of every hundred while everyone around me has a great time.

Maybe a fancy lunch wasn't in the original plan and it just became the plan when Ann felt terrible about the movie mix-up. Delicious small dishes - salad, vegetables, noodles, dumplings, pumpkin, eel, raw beef, duck, tempura shrimp, fish, and many many more - kept being added to the table while Kelly played interpreter. Eventually I tossed out "I'm full" in Korean and they were wildly impressed. They were also wildly impressed with a photo of my parents and one of me and my boyfriend. Of Luke Kelly said, "ooooooooooooooh he is my type!" Then she recoiled at my disheveled Sunday morning appearance (I had a cold and was lazy) compared to the photo from my going-away party: "Lindsay you must put off your glasses!"











Questions I've recently asked myself:

• Was I supposed to bow to that 4-year-old who just bowed to me?
• Is it acceptable to cut up this octopus with my spoon?
• Is the head of the octopus more nutritious than the tentacles?
• Where can I buy a kite?
• Why do the students have an evacuation drill and I'm supposed to just sit here?