Rola and Dumbledore!

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Dear Blog Readers,

If there is a higher being which was to give me a sign to do something during the week then it occurred on Monday. In England, the weather is usually so cold that we stop playing tennis around the end of October and start up again in April. However, in Korea, they seem to play tennis relentlessly throughout the year, although, I hadn’t heard from my tennis friends for a while so I began wracking my brains to think of the countless potential things I could have done to inadvertently offend them. I think this higher being made me think of it during the bus journey home from Wonnam on Monday which is normally an completely deserted bus winding through the villages surrounding Boeun. I was therefore surprised to walk on to a bus packed with about 10 school children all with the identically same tennis bag, and scarily, sat in exactly the same way. Coincidentally, my friend from tennis phoned me that evening to tell me of a meet up on that Saturday.

That evening I cooked a chicken tikka masala which I’m now starting to hone my skills at with the limited ingredients that we have available. I couldn’t work out the strange smell that emanated from around my body during the day but then realised I was experiencing the disadvantage of having a coat hung up right next to the stoves. During the lesson on Tuesday, I noticed one of my grade 3 students using his phone, probably texting his mate to let him know I smelt of curry. I got the phone off him so he probably won’t see it again for a week. After a few minutes, one of the students tried to explain the mobile phone usage during my lesson in broken English that he was using it as a translator (by suspiciously using it under the desk and sheepishly fumbling it into his pocket as I approached). Once I’d wiped the word ‘IDIOT’ from my forehead, I kindly reminded him that we had, in Eun-bi, a real life human Korean-English translator in the room! However, I was impressed that he had at least tried to protest his innocence in English.

People have asked me about the food in the schools and I genuinely don’t think it’s bad at all. I love the sociability anyway so I’m not really that bothered about the food. However, on Wednesday I was quite worried because my co-teacher, Mr Shin, wouldn’t even tell me what the food was I was eating. When we got back to the teachers room he told me it was ‘sundae’. Those of you who are thinking of a nice, tall ice cream smothered in sauce and placed in a glistening glass should cast it aside at once because I found out I’d just eaten pig intestine and blood. Even Wikipedia states it is “filled with various ingredients” so if Wikipedia doesn’t even know what’s in it then what hope do I have!?

In the afternoon on Wednesday, I panicked because I heard war sirens going off outside. Nobody had told me about the practice drills that are to occur on a monthly basis on 15th of each month so I genuinely thought something was up! I didn’t know whether to trust the news either because they seem to be over dramatizing things at the moment. The other day, CNN was genuinely trying to make out that South Korea’s firing drills were being stopped because they were about to go to war, but then they realised it was because the weather was bad.

I calmed down a bit after finding out it was just a drill and I had a chuckle at the Grade 1 student behind me who was getting an absolute rollicking for bringing porn in on his USB pen to school. Classic. I also got a new set of Extra class students who are in Grade 2 and the lessons have been going well so far. I went through the register on the first day and asked around if any of them had English names, the register now looks like this:

Henry
Paul
John
Danny
Moisture

Yes, ‘moisture’, is his English name.

Talking of ridiculous English names, I came home to find Laura watching, arguably the finest acting in cinematic history, in the form of Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone in preparation for seeing the new one out at the cinema. As we walked back from school together the following day, Laura was getting frustrated, “Koreans walk so slowly!” As she said it, I turned to see the man we were (almost) running past was an old man hunched over with a walking stick who looked about 127. Maybe it was Dumbledore? (note: I’m now very concerned for two reasons, firstly, I just used a Harry Potter reference during the blog, and secondly, Dumbledore doesn’t even come up on the spell checker!!!)

Due to my lack of sport over the past few weeks, I felt empowered to do something on Saturday. This began with a good game of bowling with some of Sunny’s Grade 3 students which was great fun. One kid who had never played before managed to get three strikes in a row. It reminded me of when Laura went bowling and her first ball landed in the other lane before getting the highest score of the match.

Laura’s class were doing Christmas cards and because she was worried she wouldn’t get many, she made the student’s make her a card…each! One student piped up, “Laura, spelling, R-O-L-A?” We should also mention the inside to one of the Christmas cards we picked up, “Wishing you peace, happiness and the warmth of this holiday season”, well it made us laugh in the -13 degree warmth outside!

Tink and Laura

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Photos

Wonnam Middle School
Guess who isn't from Korea.

Kimchi or Chocolate?
I think this question is posed in Macbeth?

Jinny
My co-teacher at Wonnam.

Astro
Trying to get some astrophysics in there.

Teaching
On the job!

Prizes
Christmas Presents for the students.

Korean Hand Signals
That means no.

Comments

[Tink's Mum]

Christmas Day tennis?
Hey I'm not sure that you haven't been transported to a higher plane with your musings about tennis - but am I right in deducing that you're going to be playing tennis on Christmas Day? Dunnington Tennis Club 'bring and win' would never suggest that as a possible date!