5.27.2010

Summer is Korean.

Well. I narrowly avoided death today. Aka going on my "business trip" with first the VP and then The PE Teacher With The Hair. Which, even though I know his name, is how I describe him to both the other Korean teachers and the students, who then immediately know who I'm talking about. The PE Teacher With The Hair is the newest of the lot, other than the one who looks like a bulldog, and is therefore the only one who still has issues when he encounters me in the hallway, or anywhere else where there aren't gallons of alcohol. When the VP came over to us at the lunch table today and began to describe this brilliant plan, which included intruding upon TPTWTH's early day off to have him cart me over to another district in his car, I shot Co "if you don't get me out of this I swear to god I'll bring in every single piece of mail I receive from now until eternity and make you translate every last word of it all" laser beams out of my eyes. She caught my gist and quickly explained that there was a bus sent directly from heaven which would deliver me straight to the other school's doorstep, and no PE teacher intermingling would be necessary.

The other Korean teachers gawked with first disbelief, and then envy, when they realized I had showed up all on my own. I ran straight into J, a weoneomin from the neighboring dong, and sat with her and her co, catching up a bit. Then, after long hard contemplation on my part, I made an executive decision that I didn't really need to stick around for the 45 minute spot marked "New Native Teacher Introductions" on the schedule and went to "the bathroom", aka the bus stop.

Being an oldie is quite nice. I don't have to rely on having a slacker ass co-teacher to be able to "run away".

Now I've got to clean my dump of an apartment. I meant to get round to it yesterday, but instead spend the afternoon conquering two of the four major plumbing problems I've been having (one more on the list for today, and possibly the last one tomorrow) and then I promptly fell asleep at 7 pm. I stopped by Homeplus, where I was seduced by all the Korean sidedishes in little plastic containers, which cost too much for no apparent reason.

For some reason, the warmer weather makes me want to do things Korean style. Winter is for Western things -- lush coffee and rich baked goods, whiskey and expensive imported dark beers. Summer is for soju and dried squid, big bowls of bibimbap and fermented everything.

Green tea lattes. Where do they fall? A little of both, I suppose.

Well. Enough of contemplating life's deeper questions. Getting the refuse from mine and Smalltown's night of contemplating life, love and soju cleared up, clean sheets and dishes put away. Then a few letters on the new typewriter. Possibly some other writing (?). And early to bed.

Tomorrow's Friday, so if you all hit that formspring, I'll get around to it. There have been some things setting in there all week, but I don't want this blog to turn into some kind of lame Q&A, so I think I'll try to keep it sequestered somewhat. Although without the formspring, I'm afraid this blog is just turning into a lame nothing instead. Which is what a blog should be, really. So wahey!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

"For some reason, the warmer weather makes me want to do things Korean style."
totally agree. cannot imagine a summer without sitting at the base of some mt. eating pa-jeon and drinking dong dong-ju while listening to a soft steady rain fall on the forest. my newest favorite summer repast is to sit by a stream under a bridge and eat a watermelon. according to my korean friends, this last one just confirms my ajeossi status.

Nathan said...

"Green tea lattes."

Mhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm