Um.

There are days when I really, really wish my Korean was better. Most of them involve the kongbubang.

So last week that student cussed me out, right? And I've been predicting an implosion of the study room situation for a while. I guess that was just enough for the head teacher, because I don't know what happened exactly, but basically it sounds like there was a bit of a skirmish, and the boys walked. There were only a few left -- they're nearly in high school now, anyway, and have been dropping like flies, as they mostly realize that studying hard at this point isn't going to do them much good. In Korea, it's basically the equivalent of trying to get your shit together the last semester of high school -- too little, too late. I don't know if Jeongwoo was told to leave, the others (including his twin) followed, or if, upon the correction of the head teacher, he decided to peace out and the others went behind. I have no idea. All I know is, they kept claiming it wasn't just the situation with me, but that their attitudes have been shit all around, and basically had been only showing up for my class for a while.

Saving face and that, so who fucking knows. But when I went in tonight, there was one fresh faced little middle school first grader waiting for me. They asked if I could come in earlier at 5 to teach the elementary school kids, but there's no way -- I get off work at 4:30, and it takes roughly an hour and fifteen minutes to get there. I told them the best I could do was maybe 5:30, and that's with taking a taxi to the bus stop.

So I guess it's just me and rosy cheeked little Taeyoung for now. Which after how bad things were last week is sort of alright with me. I loved those boys and all, and most of them were lovely most of the time, but Joohyeong and Jeongwoo were getting more and more nasty, and I don't really need to spend my free time taking shit off sixteen year olds. I've got too much of a temper for that to have gone well for much longer.

At work, we've got two weeks until finals and the tension is palpable. We're doing a game this week, as we've been doing book work for absolute ages -- only actually managed to get around to one "game" day this whole semester, since I extended one chapter into a whole huge project. Chapter 12 next week and then "I like to movie movie" time until vacation. But the next two weeks are going to be rough. Their hard-wiring is starting to spark and sputter. It's too the point where I've begun to use the word "stupid" for impact. Not as in, "You're stupid," but as in, "This is stupid," and that old classic, "Are you crazy!?" Hahahaha Teacher so funny.

Yeah. Yuck it up, clowns. Post-exam Movie Movie Time is optional, need I remind you? I have all the power now.

How do you deal with gossip in the Korean workplace?

This one is very simple to answer -- I deal with gossip in the workplace in much the same way I deal with gossip anywhere, which is that I don't ever say anything to anyone about anyone or anything, unless it's something that I wouldn't mind other people hearing as having come from me.

Gossip in nearly every workplace I've ever been a part of has been atrocious, so I haven't found it to be much different in Korea, other than the fact that, as the foreigner, at first I tended to generate a bit more interest, and so word about the most mundane things would travel the width and breadth of the school in record time, and come back to me from the most bizarre places. But that's mostly fine, as again I'm really careful anyway about the things that I say.

Now that I'm really close to a few of my coworkers, the situation is a bit different. I know, for example, that I can complain to Co about the male instructor who gives me a hard time, and the only people she will tell about it will be the other co's that I'm close to, who also will not pass it on to other teachers who may blab it outside of our circle. This came with time, as they also realized they could complain to me about the instructors, who I actually work with, without me letting on to them, or about the head teachers, without me making an issue of it. Basically building trust and relationships the same way you would with any other social group. But mostly, I generally try not to say anything about anyone that I wouldn't or haven't already said to their faces anyway. I think it's kind of a nasty character trait to have in the first place. I'm not perfect, by any means, but I've found that life is a lot simpler when you learn how to keep your mouth shut most of the time.

But in regards to your personal life and your other coworkers, at first, it's best to just assume that anything you say to anyone will be the equivalent of speaking it into the mic over the school PA system. Don't talk about anything in your personal life that can be taboo in Korean culture, unless you're okay with everyone knowing it, and figure out who among your coworkers have allegiances and relationships with who, before you open your mouth about anyone to anyone else.

And try not to get too upset about the fact that you told your co-teacher you're going to the movies this weekend, and some completely unrelated teacher mentioned this fact to you five minutes later, while coming from a completely different direction. As the other teachers at school get used to you, their interest will wane, and you'll eventually be just another boring coworker, like I am now for the most part.

Ask me anything

American Thanksgiving, through the eyes of Korean middle school boys.

Cranberry sauce = 자장

Dressing/Stuffing = 된장/really, really gross, until they had it pointed out that Koreans eat rice, whereas Americans eat bread, and 삼계탕 is basically the same concept.

Mashed potatoes = 밥/아이스크림

Pumpkin pie = 케이크

Green beans = 고추

Gravy = 커리

Squash = 망고

But, wonder of wonders, they instantly knew what sweet potatoes were.

Asshole.

Some power drunk asshole just attacked my students. I heard him before I saw him, screaming from inside his car for the "fucking son of a bitch little bastards" (rough translation) to get out of the street. That's fair enough, I guess, if you're an asshole. Were they in the street? Yes. Were they in the middle of the street? No. Is it even remotely uncommon for people to walk in the street in Korea, particularly in smaller neighborhoods? No. Were there two whole huge completely empty lanes available to this fine specimen of humanity, which my students were nowhere near even breathing in the direction of? Yes. But an asshole's an asshole, I guess.

What wasn't alright was when the students, being the very small, very timid, and very obedient students that they are, started to make for the sidewalk, and he swerved his car over nearly hitting one of them to cut them off and corner them in so that he could then get out and continue to scream at them, while raising his fist, threatening to punch them in their faces. Even for an asshole, that's pretty low.

So I crossed the street. Because nothing throws a situation like that off kilter quicker than a foreigner showing up. The man was screaming at the boys to get the fuck on the sidewalk, yet was blocking their path to the sidewalk with his car on one side and his fist on the other. "Hey guys! Come here." I put my arm out in front of the man's fist to form a kind of very loose barricade and kind of herded them back in my direction. I got them all up on the sidewalk, except for one who had hidden behind a car and ended up stuck on the other side of the barrier between the sidewalk and the street. He started to walk back in the now bewildered man's direction to follow us up, but I grabbed his wrist over the barrier and said, "No. Don't do that. Just come here. Climb over." We pulled him over and the boys stood there for a minute looking utterly terrified, as the man continued to mutter obscenities and debated about getting back in his car. "Just walk, guys. Come on. Go. Everybody okay?"

"Yes, Teacher. Okay."

It's my saving grace as a foreigner sometimes that people are too stunned to scream at me. I don't think that guy was in any way, shape or form finished with his power trip, and had I been a young female Korean teacher, I'm pretty sure he would have turned his attention to me. As it was, he didn't know what to do, and eventually just got back in his car and drove away. Ass. Complete and total ass.

Jeongwoo nearly gets slapped and Hyung spotting.

Tonight at the center one of the twins, Jeongwoo, the decided asshole of the lot of them, got pissy with me because I refused to end class when he wanted me to. The boys took fifteen minutes to come in and get settled down, so we went fifteen minutes long. That's how I do shit. That's how I've always done shit, unless there's another batch of students waiting to come in. You want to fiddlefuck around before class, that's fine. I'm going to fiddlefuck around for the exact same amount of time before I end class. Thus, most fiddlefucking is eventually avoided. Tonight, they decided to fiddlefuck anyway.

Jeongwoo wasn't feeling well, and I knew that. But life is hard and the sooner you clock on to that and learn to deal with it gracefully, the better. People who allow you not to learn that lesson certainly aren't doing you any favors. Anyway, he unloaded with a comment to the others in Korean that my class time was boring. Which he knew full well I would understand. So I turned around with a big ol' grin on my face and said, in Korean so that all present could understand just as well as they had his comment, that he, also, was boring me, so it was fair enough.

That pissed Jeongwoo off. First he said using polite speech that he wanted me to go away, which was bad enough, but then when I just continued smirking at him and informed him that that wasn't likely to happen, he slipped into banmal and told me to shut my mouth. That's a slappable offense where I'm from, and it's downright justifiable to beat a kid to a bloody pulp for speaking that way to a teacher in Korea. Of course, I didn't do that. Because that's insane. And the male teacher who had been sitting at a computer nearby got to him first, anyway. He grabbed him by the hair and held his head back, stroking his face and speaking softly, but in a vaguely threatening manner. He explained that I didn't have to be there, that I was giving my time and energy for free, and no other foreign or Korean teacher was likely to come in week after week and put up with his shit, so he suggested that Jeongwoo shut his mouth before I realized what a waste of time it was trying to teach him. That was just what I managed to catch. There was a lot that I didn't.

This is one of those things about being a more long-term foreigner in Korea. I can understand enough to know how fucking disrespected I've just been, but I can't properly communicate in a capable manner, enough to address the issue the way I would be able to in my native tongue. Which is why I just let the male teacher handle it. If it had been one of my students at school, it would've been a whole other ballgame. That kid would've been kneeling in front of the haksaengbu in no time flat. Because you can't let word spread around that someone spoke to you like that and suffered no consequences, when you're trying to keep 1,500 teenage boys under control, forty at a time. As it was, there were only three other students in the room at the time, and they were humilated by their friend's behavior already, his twin most of all.

We ended up finishing the last worksheet five minutes early. I pointed this out to Jeongwoo, and asked him if he was happy then. He politely told me that he was just not feeling well, and I suppose coming from Jeongwoo, that was good enough in the way of an apology. As it is, I'm glad that the male teacher didn't haul off and hit him, but just explained it to him that way, so that I could see that that alone would change his attitude. It was hard enough to take as it was, even though I knew he was in a bad mood and just angry. It's still a bigger blow to my ego than anything else in the world to have a student complain about my teaching. I can't just shake it off. So to see that just having it pointed out that I could very well walk out on them at anytime was enough for him to pull it together helped a bit with the sting.

Was feeling blue anyway, on the bus ride home. It's amazing how I can go weeks and weeks with nothing but excited students standing on desks and shouting for joy when I walk into the room, and screaming hello out of bus windows as they pass, but then one comment out of one asshole kid can make me doubt everything. Looking out the window as the bus stopped at a light near my neighborhood, and suddenly I was eyeball to eyeball with Hyung, our big struggling student who graduated last year, who Old Co would bring to me to explain things when he was having a hard time. Back then, he was the only student I would speak Korean to, Old Co asking me to pull out my homework from Korean class so he could see my wonky handwriting and numerous mistakes. She would tell him, see, she's not perfect -- it's cute, right? -- but she started from nothing but 안녕하세요? She's not stupid, right? She undertands you. And when he tried to cover the tattoo on his hand when I noticed it, I just pulled up my sleeve and showed him my own.

He stared at me for a moment through the window, waiting to see if I would recognize him, and when I smiled, he gave a big bow and cracked a grin. The bus pulled away. He looked good -- healthy and happy, and a lot less tired and bogged down than he used to. He was also in uniform, which means he's still going to school. I felt a lot better by the time I made it home.

Kim Daul.

Can't believe it's been a year. Whatever anyone else says about her, she was fucking beautiful. And no matter where you place the cultural blame -- or where she saw fit to place it, as she undoubtedly had an elevated right to do -- every culture has its struggles with the things that she did, and she stood up to any that she encountered.

People are quick to point out that mental illness doubtlessly played a 'bigger' role in what went on in her life than society did, but I think people who try to make points like that only stand to make it incredibly obvious how little they understand what mental illness is, or can be. In many cases, it can be simplified and reduced to be defined as an inability to adapt and conform oneself to meet various social standards. Some people try to argue that those social standards constitute being mentally well -- that there is a 'naturally' correct way to be. But, for anyone who's ever been there, it's obvious how convoluted and, frankly, naive that stance is. When the way that you 'naturally' are is different from what's 'natural', well....

Then you're mentally ill, and society can't be held responsible.

And how easy it is to foist those labels on women, in particular.

I don't believe Daul was responding to Korean (or any other) society at large -- she was responding to the various expectations individuals, and communities of individuals, had for her. In her personal life. Is that less damaging? Is it less influenced by cultural and social standards? When my father told me 'girls don't behave that way' when I was growing up, was that just my father? Was it American culture? Southern Baptist culture? Working class culture? Italian-American culture? Society at large? Or just a personal problem? Where did my father get that idea from? And how was it enforced by other aspects of the culture that surrounded me?

You see what I mean?

It's not so simple, although when something as tragic as the suicide of an extremely successful 20 year old girl with a big, wide open future in front of her happens, it's certainly easy to see why people try to rationalize, compartmentalize and reduce it as much as possible.

But let's try not to do that. Or to speak for the dead. She had a voice of her own, even if you disagreed with it.

Stomach blues and coffee woes.

Not happy with my body at the moment, it has to be said. I had big plans for the day off today, but they were unequivocally foiled by my stomach waking me from a dead sleep at 2 am to be absolutely horrible. Stayed up drinking herbal tea, willing some kind of mind-over-matter voodoo, and lying face-down on the ondol until just after 4. Son of a bitch. I don't know what the deal is, but I've been having issues with eating for a couple of weeks now, off and on, so if it keeps up I suppose I'll have to do what has as of yet been avoided so far in my Korean adventures, which is go to the fucking doctor.

If I'm really honest with myself, I know what it is. But I don't want to be honest with myself about it, because it's much more difficult than a stomach virus -- anxiety. I've been slowly easing myself into considering that possibility the past couple of days, but the reason why it's such a pain in the ass is that there isn't always a clear cause. Sometimes, it just is. Which is fucking annoying. Anyway. You didn't come here to read about that, now did you?

I did eventually make it out this afternoon. To Hongdae, where at my favorite coffee shop I failed yet again at managing to get my hands on a fucking large coffee. I love this place. I love everything about this place. But I think it's actually impossible to get them to give you a large coffee, if you're a foreigner. Or me. I've tried everything I can think of -- saying it in Korean, saying it as it's written on the menu ("tall"), saying it as the small size is written on the menu ("regular"), saying it in English and Konglish ("lar-gee" and "big si-juh", pointing to the big cup on the display counter. Every time the clerk nods. Ah, I understand. Then my little electronic thingy buzzes and there it is -- a fucking small. I have similar issues with getting them to give it to me in a paper cup. Take out. Jan. Mug, no. Igeot.

Fucking nothing. I don't know.

In other news, in case you're bothered, the new massive ZARA is open in Hongdae. I wandered in and walked around today, but purposely didn't go to the ATM first. Stared at a pair of shoes for about five minutes. Made myself leave and not go back. Went around the corner to another coffee shop to get another small cup of coffee to make up for the lack of buzz from the one that only took me about ten minutes to drink at the other place. They outdid themselves this time. I think it might have actually been a mini size. It was actually in a paper cup, and maybe that was the issue, but it was about half whipped cream and it took me forever to even get the coffee to start coming out.

God my life is rivetting. Aren't you glad you stopped by to read today? Well, there are a lot of other things going on, but I'm just not feeling well these days and I'm focusing on staying positive at work and doing the best that I can there. That means the rest of my life is a bit staticy at the moment, including writing this blog.

I will say that my winter life forever changed this evening as I discovered something that probably every other female on the peninsula is already aware of, which is fleece-lined tights. If you haven't come across them yet, be on the look out. I may never take them off. Until April.

Over and out again for now.

What just happened?

Oi vey. Third period class currently getting their asses kicked by my co-teacher. I don't even know what that was about, but they got next week's class with me cancelled as a punishment, two of them were taken out in the hall to get smacked around, and now the whole class is locked in the classroom being berated. And this is a very, very reasonable co-teacher they've pushed to this level.

I was seriously having issues keeping it together with them. They weren't trying to be bad. They were actively engaged in trying to understand what was going on. But they would not shut the fuck up long enough to figure it out. They just kept mumbling and shouting out in Korean, discussing it amongst themselves. Neither me nor my co-teacher could get a word in edgewise, in either English or Korean, long enough to get the concepts across. They kept interrupting us with their own attempts at interpreting what we were explaining before we even had a chance to explain it. Even after we stopped them several times to explain that they needed to actually listen to understand, and to stop talking. It was fucking bizarre.

Anyway. That was unexpectedly frustrating. And I feel bad for them that they're in serious trouble over it, because I do think they were honestly trying. They just lost the fucking plot as to how to best go about that. But then again, sometimes stupid behavior needs correcting just as severely as willfully defiant behavior, when the end result is the same, and when gentler approaches haven't worked. Either way, I'm ready for Thursday now.

Rah.

I'm alive. Just really busy/tired/cold. I slow down in the winter. And winter just came out of nowhere and bitchslapped me right in mah face. Um. There are a lot of things to say. Like answering some of the bazillion fantastic questions I have piling up in my inbox, or how cute Pepero Day was this year, or how really into designing robots the first graders are, while I continue to crack the bitch-whip with the second graders and come out (mostly) on the winning end. Or how the boys at the center are lovely, even though I think the center is kind of falling apart and my even close down or something soon. I'm gonna ride it out as long as they'll let me.

Uh. But mostly I'm going to bed now. Because five classes of robots plus tutoring our high level students in between classes, during lunch and after school to help them prep for international highs, and dragging the boys through the lesson at the center tonight even though they're in the midst of finals has fucking exhausted me. And I'm cold. And wearing sweat pants over knee socks over tights just isn't cutting it the way my two big fluffy blankets will.

I'm going ito Greece soon. I have Thursday off of work. I'm kind of a redhead now.

Do you feel kind of updated? No? I'll just go back to radio silence until I have something valid to say (or time to say it) again, then. You'll survive, my lovelies. I just know that you will.

Women's bodies, cont.

Thinking more today about the post I made quickly this morning answering a question (or rather concern?) about a Western woman apparently causing a ruckus in her work place by having breasts, and a few other things, plus looking over The Grand Narrative's latest post, I wanted to revisit the topic in a little more detail. Because it's something that's been bothering me. And if it's bothering me, and considering the question that was left for me to respond to, it's more than likely been an issue for at least a few of you as well.

The Grand Narrative left a link to this article in response to the earlier post, which was basically exactly what I was thinking when I saw that question come up in my inbox. It obviously happens all over the world, including in our home environments, where a woman is easily classified as being any degree of "slutty" based solely on the way that her body naturally looks. It's highlighted, however, by the fact that Western women can often have more curvaceous or naturally busty bodies than what is considered the norm in Korea, which is only exacerbated by the Korean media's ease and comfort with highlighting these differences, while simultaneously depicting Western women as largely promiscuous. Which is not even a word I like, to begin with.

Tom Spanbauer is a largely unknown, hugely brilliant writer who runs a workshop based on a concept called "dangerous writing". He is responsible for Fight Club, and basically anything worthwhile Chuck Palahniuk ever wrote. Dangerous writing is defined as the following:

The emphasis is on writing "dangerously" -- that is, writing what personally scares or embarrasses the author in order to explore and artistically express those fears honestly.

I had the privilege of hearing Spanbauer speak in person about his theory, which came out of his experience of having his religious father find his journals when he was in high school, which were full of accounts of his own homosexuality, and being kicked out of his home and alienated from his family as a result. That has little to nothing to do with what I'm about to write, but it just annoys me that more people know who Palahniuk is than Spanbauer, so I wanted to put that out there.

Anyway. This is all to say that, although I am an intensely private person by nature, in order to properly illustrate a point I'm trying to make, sometimes I have to publicly admit something that I don't really want to. Now, I'm about to do it again.

I recently joined a dating site. Now, please immediately erase that fact from your memory, because, although it's common enough in today's society, and largely popular and widely accepted in Korea especially, I personally find it a bit humiliating. Mostly because I don't like to admit that I even want to date. I won't justify it beyond that.

The point is, it's mostly just been really annoying and disappointing. And it hasn't even been a week. I know there are sleaze buckets all over the world, but there's something that seems particularly empowering to the male about a dating site which encourages him to approach a foreign woman in a completely unacceptable manner, and under ridiculous pretenses. I've already had a Pillsbury Doughboy of a man ask me within the first five lines of correspondence if I have a "nice body" (the fact that he is a bit rotund would be unworthy of mention, in my opinion, were it not for his uninhibited concern about my condition), and then tell me that I was jumping to conclusions when I immediately informed him that I didn't find that question to be within the confines of good manners, and therefore didn't think we would make a good match. He was apparently just being "friendly". Another man who contacted me filled in his profile with the information that he had both joined the site in order to find a sex partner, and that he would not want a child of mixed ethnicity, and then informed me that I was a "crazy girl" for telling him, for those specific reasons, that he wasn't what I was looking for, either.

Charming, no? The only upside I can see to internet dating thus far is that all the stupid shit that will undoubtedly eventually issue forth from men's mouths is right there out in the open from the beginning, so I don't have to decide between being "polite" and continuing to sit through a dinner with a man I find repulsive, or being a "bitch" and immediately putting on my coat and walking out. Three cheers for that, I suppose.

This has been combined, this week, with one of my new students deciding that it's acceptable to tell me that I am a beautiful girl and repeatedly attempt to kiss me. To the point where I had to physically restrain him. There is not a doubt in my mind that this little shit would never fucking dare to try such a thing with a Korean teacher.

And then, the cherry on the fucking shit sundae: a coworker has informed me that I have a very nice S line. Where I come from, that qualifies as sexual harassment in the workplace. And my co-teachers quietly confided, back in the office, that as far as they are concerned, it does for them as well. Now. This last one didn't happen just because I am foreign. The incident, in fact, led to a private discussion amongst female teachers in our office about similar instances they had all undergone or witnessed. But. Because I am foreign, my body naturally looks a certain way that is not as common in Korea as it is back in the States. The same as the body of the woman who wrote in about what's happening in her workplace. And that, apparently, is open season for comment.

I guess I'm just having a hard time adjusting to a few different things. I've always been a bit sensitive about being female, which comes from a long, horrendous history of enforced gender roles within the culture I came up in, and, specifically, my father. It also has to do with the fact that the person I was closest to growing up was my little brother, which led to an early instinct to need to be viewed as "one of the guys", aka on equal ground. I can't even begin to describe the base level of frustration that came with being inside of a body that people constantly told me meant certain things about me, which I couldn't feel as being natural to me at all. It wasn't even about feminism in the intellectual sense -- it was about the very raw emotion of being told over and over again that something about yourself you know isn't true, is true. And that you don't have the right to argue.

And then, when I got out of that environment, I moved away to art school in New York, where gender roles where a whole beautiful mess of fucked up anyway, and you could basically be whatever you chose to be, and most people accepted it without batting an eyelash. Which was a luxury which just couldn't last.

But the other part of it is that my body has actually changed. I've lost weight. I've gone from a wardrobe largely consisting of second-hand t shirts and torn jeans to pencil skirts and heels. For my job. Because what my grandmother used to tell me over and over again actually came true, and one day I got a job where I had to start dressing "like a grown up". And people's reactions to me have changed. It's not as easy now to be "one of the guys". And, on top of that, I've also become a foreign female with a D cup and S line in Korean society.

It's a whole, whole lot to process and deal with at one time. Which is why that question struck a particular chord with me this morning. Because all I've been thinking all week is how I don't understand why other people can't just leave me the fuck alone about my body, which looks the way that it looks not because I chose for it to look that way, or because I made it look that way, or because I want it to look that way, but because it just looks that way.

What's my point? I don't know. I suppose, just that I'm tired. And way too many stupid things have happened this week and I'm glad tomorrow is Friday. And I guess I'll wake up on Saturday and decide whether or not I should go out this weekend wearing a potato sack. Men, I love you. I really do. I really, really do. But you should say an extra prayer of thanksgiving to the Universe tonight for not having to worry about all of the shit that you think we're overly sensitive about, because we ordinarily don't have the time to explain it to you. I know you've got your own problems. But before you hit the bars to pick up this weekend, or, god forbid, log in to your account on that dating website, think twice about the things that are going to come out of your mouth and what all else that woman may have had to already put up with this week. Be her break from all of that, and she'll be way more likely to give you a second date. I promise.

I'm a new English teacher, and now I'm getting comments that my breasts are making my male coworkers uncomfortable. How do I handle this, when I'm a US size 10 womens and have a D cup?

This one is going to jump the line right quick, because I feel like it's a really important thing for new female teachers to hear right up front.

I'm also a D cup, although I've been self-conscious about the damn things since they started coming in and have always kind of gone out of my way to find garments that disguise them as well as I can manage. I can honestly say that I have never had any coworker make any comment along those lines. So one of two things is going on here: either you're being picked on because your body, which you have no control over whatsoever, is being sexualized by your male coworkers, which is unacceptable and entirely their problem, or some of that plus you haven't adjusted to Korea's ideas of modesty, which are shockingly different from the West's when it comes to the top half of the female body.

Base line standard in Korea: If you are showing even the tiniest centimeter of a crack of cleavage, you are not dressed appropriately for work. Shoulders are also largely taboo, although we have noticed this changing a bit this past summer. Even too much exposed skin on the chest above the cleavage mark can be considered risque.

It's a pain in the ass for girls with larger chests, because it's really difficult to find garments that won't show any cleavage, no matter what position you are in. I've also had to take to having an army of undershirts on hand, in order to be sure that not even the shadow of a bra can be seen, because I work at an all boys' middle school, and if you stand just right framed in the window on a sunny morning.... well. I also now squat beside student desks when helping them with an assignment, rather than bending over.

I'm not going to sit here and argue the merits of these standards, because... well just because I'm not. But I'll let you know that that's what they are. There are even certain t shirts I've had to give up on, because of the super inappropriate reactions of men when I wear them out and about in the neighborhood. Is it weird that it seems there are no limits on the length (or lack there of) of skirts that are considered appropriate in the workplace? Yes. But it's just one of those things.

On the other hand, if you are taking measures to make sure that nothing about your clothing can be considered inappropriate by Korean standards, then, were it me, I would consider having a very honest conversation with a female coworker (I assume it was a woman who approached you about this subject) about how you are a Western woman, and your body is just different, and there is nothing that you can do about that, and how it makes you feel uncomfortable to feel that your male coworkers are viewing your body in that way and commenting on it. Their comfort does not come before yours, especially when it's not you who is making an issue of it. What does she expect you to do? Have a dangerous and traumatic surgery because your male coworkers can't control their own reactions to your body? Unacceptable. Don't allow them to put something off on you which is not your responsibility. No woman deserves to be made to feel ashamed of her body, no matter what it looks like, because of other people's poor abilities to monitor their own perceptions. Good luck.

Ask me anything

Sick and meeting Jinsoo.

I've got some reeeally good stuff in my inbox right now, but unfortunately I've been really, really sick since Saturday morning, and I'm using literally every ounce of strength I can manage to scrape together to get through my classes and other commitments. By the time I get home in the evening, I'm like television static.

I don't know what's wrong with my coworkers, but they're flipping their shit over this cold. I'm sick, but I'm only staying as sick for as long as I am because I'm also working. I did everything I could to rest up this weekend, but it wasn't enough. I'm not complaining, but I guess I just look and sound really bad. They alwas show concern, but something about it is really freaking them out this time. They want me to inhale salt water/go home/go to the hospital/go see the nurse/take these vitamins/get some medicine/go sleep in the teacher's rest room/drink this peach tea/eat/eat/EAT!!!

I'm not one of those people who wants their mommy when they are sick. I'm one of those people who wants to be left alone with a box of tissues to sleep it off. And I also like to do things my own way. Go figure, right? You had no idea. So. I'm having some issues. I also wonder just how awful I must look for them to be freaking out this much about it. It's a cold. Obviously. Everyone in the goddamn school's got one at the moment. I can barely be heard in class sometimes for all the sneezes that are happening simultaneously at the moment.

So. One short cute story, and then I'm off to drink tea in bed: I've got a couple of firstie classes that are a little on the special side. That's not "special" in a good way, in case you missed the undercurrent. I love them. They've got style, god bless them, and I do believe they are (usually) trying their best. But it's a little like herding chickens trying to get them to follow the lesson. Today I walked in and they all pounced on me immediately to tell me there was a 전학생 -- a new student. Obviously I was immediately suspicious, because they don't normally interact well with the new students, and I'm usually left stumbling upon a completely unfamiliar face halfway through the lecture, going, "Who are you?" before they'll say a word.

They point to the seating chart on the podium where a name has obviously been hand-altered by one of the students to read 김진수. Then they pointed to a seat way in the back, where there appeared to be a student laying face down on the desk with his hood up. At first, I genuinely did think it was a student. Which student, I didn't know, but I knew it wasn't a new one. I started hearing cries of "아파요! 샘! 진수가 아파요!" Then I noticed Jinsoo's legs were a little misshapen.

They'd taken a pair of gym pants and stuffed them full of gym shorts, placed the cuffs over a pair of shoes, and then arranged a couple of blazers under a big puffy jacket, jamming two thermoses up the sleeves, to make it look as though a student was sitting in the seat. Not bad work, but I'd cracked on. Couldn't hurt to play along though, right?

"진수야! 일어나요! 영어수업 시간! 야 진수.... 진짜 아프다? 진수.... 반가와요."

Of course, they were in stitches. Pleased as punch at the foolish weoneomin speaking dodgy Korean to a pile of gym clothes. A few saw the look cross my face when I had realized what was going on, and knew I was acting, but the babies of the class were nearly about to explode with how pleased they were with themselves. Cute as fuck. And they kept their shit together during class time, as well.