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Lashes and Last Friday of Whatever Strange Winter Vacation Land I’m In
As you know, whatever winter plans I had during this vacation were completely uprooted by the virus and school scheduling changes. It looks like with a continuation of the virus I’ll be unable to visit my former Chinese students in April like I had planned which is a huge bummer. I’m not sure there will be many places I can actually visit during our short April vacation since everywhere I’d like to visit is within Asia. As such I’m in a strange time suspension where I don’t have to work but can’t do much else. So today I decided to cross one thing off my list. I got an eyelash…
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When The Masks Come On
Face masks offer a certain level of anonymity and as a result, boldness. People tend to ignore me, or perhaps more accurately don’t take excessive notice of me, but once the masks are on, I make and receive a startling amount of eye contact. The other day I hopped off the bus and distantly saw a tall and fit young man, also masked, approaching in very form fitting business wear. It was a lot to observe at 8AM. I looked at him. He looked at me. We continued making very deep eye contact until I rounded the corner and subsequently had to catch my breath. The level of intimacy I’ve…
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Steak&Cake
Cults, cakes, steaks: another Wednesday.
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First Delivery Order
There is a very certain kind of fear that is known to few: when you receive a call from a local number in a country whose language you don’t speak. But I had to overcome this fear in order to get delivery fried chicken. Do something every day that scares you, right? I nervously hit enter on the delivery app, my first time to ever get delivery on my own, after leaving a note that I was a foreigner so please talk slowly on the phone. As things tend to go, the delivery man called me because he ended up in another building, then chastised me when I came looking…
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School, Interrupted
Here we go again! The thing about Covid-19 is that it DEFINITELY runs on Asia Time. I saw on the news that a cult, being as morally righteous and helpful as a cult is, spread the virus all throughout the southern cities of Korea from a stable 50 to a newly reported figure of over 600. I didn’t know if this would affect me since people in Seoul seem less concerned than ever, but a late night “how are you” text from S sent off warning bells in my head. Recall that last time she texted, I had to cancel my vacation. “Did you hear the news? School has been…
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A Questionable Friday
Um. After working out, I decided to visit the seafood pancake place I found the other day. I nervously entered only to find, in a restaurant of four tables, the office manager and one of the older guys (who earlier today fell asleep at his desk). They invited me to sit with them and I didn’t find out until later that they’d already had eight bottles of makgeolli which WOW explains a lot. That’s probably like six bottles of wine. In an increasingly garbled English/Korean conversation the manager told me if I had any hardships to tell him. He added, “we appreciate you working here.” He also said he’d make…
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Barista BFF
My heart! I ate lunch then decided to visit my coffee shop— not the one where the barista hates S but the one with the very chipper young woman. In the afternoons she is joined by a another young guy who doesn’t know me. When the bell rang as I entered the coffee shop she looked over his shoulder and we both waved excitedly at each other. He took my order, there was some confusion but we managed, and I even got up when “vanilla latte” was called. It wasn’t mine so she made a big X and we laughed. Teenage boy looked in on mild confusion. When my drink…
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Last Day of Winter Desk Warming
It has finally arrived! I told the English speaking woman that I wouldn’t be here next week and asked what I should with my things. She seemed confused as to why I would take vacation but I restrained myself from launching into “Vacation, Interrupted”. S told the office manager my situation but let them think what they will. Many of the words we practiced throughout the week were a buildup to “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?” by Eric Carle. We practiced colors, then colors and animals, then “I see…”. I read the story once then reviewed I/you/we/us/me which all appeared in the story. Students later had to…
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Last Week of Winter Desk Warming, Day 4
ASIA TIME STRIKES AGAIN At 4:29PM yesterday, there was a flurry of activity in the makeshift office. Suddenly the staff was disconnecting computers and taking apart desks. A running truck waited outside. I unplugged my computer and put all my things into my ever present moving box but didn’t understand if I needed to actually take the box back to my classroom. The office manager told me something and all I wanted in this confusion was a yes or no answer. Luckily, the young woman who speaks English (but hates to) intervened and said “You don’t have to.” I still wasn’t sure what was happening and was frustrated by the…
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Last Week of Winter Desk Warming, Day 3
I’ve learned so much about teaching from these past two weeks! Since today was a morning session, I kept activities to writing and puzzles. At the end of class I had another game planned which I will save for tomorrow because of this: I’ve introduced “it is…” and “I like…” and “I don’t like…”. We had a fun time voting on things we do and don’t like and at the end I drew a hamburger. Kids volunteered items to add “I like pickles! I like cola! I like chicken nuggets!” and luckily I knew what they meant since the words for these in Korean are simply transcribed English. We continued…