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Last Day of Desk Warming
This morning a small napkin full of popcorn and some type of delicous airy chocolate snack appeared on my desk. I told the room at large, “Thank you!” and also felt confident enough to finally ask if it was possible to print in this makeshift office. I spent the morning finalizing Winter Camp materials and printing out the last of the worksheets. For lunch I originally planned to revisit the stew place from my first week but didn’t want to commit to a full hour, so instead ate tuna kimbap at a very typical “snack” place. In Korea, orange signs indicate traditional Korean family style restaurants or quick snack places…
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Getting Dressed in Korean
Feel my pain: these are the ways you say “put on” in Korean. The verb changes to match the type of clothing/accessory/makeup. For example, you put on clothes, fasten a watch, pull on shoes, fit rings and gloves, spread, lotion, do makeup, tie a necktie but wrap a scarf, pick up a bag but strap on a purse. My tutor asked what kind of man I like, “fashionable”? I said any is okay as long as there is some effort. But “If he takes more time getting ready than me, I really don’t like it.” For language corner, we can see how different Korean is in sentence structure which really…
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Desk Warming, Day 11
Today was a day of revelations that still leave me flabbergasted. Perhaps it started with the discovery of a free range rooster. Why did he cross the road? No, really, why is there a rooster loose in the maze of apartment complexes near the mountain base? G stopped by to finish her taxes and discovered me. “Can you go out? I want to buy you bread.” “Yes, I don’t think anyone really cares.” Arm in arm we walked to the bakery and G told me that the nervous young office woman intercepted her to say “Please tell Abigail I feel sorry. She doesn’t like our lunch food so it must…
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Five Year Plans
The real reason I never made a five year plan is not because I am a flake but because I was never happy enough where I was to imagine continuing that situation for another five years. At the time I was supposed to tell you, “In five years I will have invented X and married Y and received Z promotion or award. I’m going to become CEO and change the world.” That’s the point of a five year plan, after all, right? To show others what magnificent goals you plan to achieve. That seemed to be the reason that my employers and parents asked for it. For me that’s too…
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Desk Warming, Day 10
In the most absurd moment yet, en route to the gym bathroom I interrupted the VP practicing unicycling. I have no words. H popped in before lunch to submit her taxes before her gap year and offered to take me out for coffee. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to leave my post so early so she went upstairs to ask the VP, perhaps interrupting a lap. We got the greenlight and spent an hour at the coffee shop where the barista hates S (see “Week 9, Thursday”) and had good life chats. She told me that she told the VP “I think it must be very boring for…
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Desk Warming, Day 9
I’m understanding more of the back neighborhoods around my school: today I ate my ramen at GS25 then wandered. The area behind the school must be an older neighborhood because many of the buildings exhibit characteristics of 1970s Korean architecture: low brick buildings, intricate metal doors. The sun was shining in my eyes so it took me some time to recognize Tank Boy in a popular shortcut alleyway by the school. “Hello, teacher!” He shouted from his bike. Did I ever tell you that his dream job is to be a professional MTX biker? I also surprised one of my grade 4 boys as I emerged between two old buildings…
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Seollal Pyeongchang Trout Festival
*For context: I joined a four day foreigner ski trip to the home of the 2018 Winter Olympics, Pyeongchang. A good trip overall but I’ve learned that going forward tour groups are not and have never been my forte. I had a few odd moments this weekend where I was thrust back into my early college days when not socially drinking amongst strangers marked me as a weirdo. “Am I still an extrovert? Am I bad at making friends now? Why isn’t this fun?” I thought to myself, watching strangers get cozy playing drinking games. Today I said good morning to two of the men and they looked at me…
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Seollal Pyeongchang Ski Trip
Happy new year!
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Desk Warming, Day 7
I wandered straight into a sports camp for second graders. The bathroom is in the gym so I walked through a chorus of “영 선생님!” and “hi! hello!”. I waved two hands like a Korean celebrity. In subsequent trips some kids just stared, so I stared right back. Upon seeing my spending this month, I decided that most days I should eat at cafe a la 7-11. Today I wandered the backstreets of the neighborhood until I reached the base of Bonghwasan Mountain. I passed “give me candy” and her younger sister at the park and told her to exercise well as she was spinning on some contraption. At GS25…
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Sokcho’s Bad Boy
At first I thought this resistant boy was a stray but then I saw his owner, an older man in a jumpsuit and hunting cap, squatting in the road saying 들어가 들어가 “go in, go in” and gesturing to the open warehouse where another man was working. The pupper sat stubbornly in place so his owner could only laugh helplessly.