This week was a hectic week. I worked six hours more than usual, plus it was Halloween, so I had to do a bunch of preparation for that. I had to decorate my classroom, perfect my costume, help the students make candy bags, plus find time in there to have a social life.
Monday because I had to teach an extra class, I was late to my Korean class, which was kind of embarrassing, to come in and interrupt the lesson. Then as usual I went out for dinner with my classmates after class. That’s where I practice all of my conversation skills. So, I didn’t get home until very late, then the next day I did the same thing.
Wednesdays I don’t have class, but this Wednesday, I kind of had a date. I went out to dinner with a boy one of my friends had introduced me to. It was an interesting dinner. He was really shy and Korean, and I am really shy and American, so there were a lot of barriers to be overcome. I was so tired that my Korean skills were not at their best. But in the end it turned out to be a pretty fun evening. Thanks to him I found a Kyobo book store in my neck of the woods, that probably has a pretty nice English section. I’ll have to go back and check it out another time.
Thursday was our Halloween party at school. It was pretty fun, the kids were all really cute in their costumes. I however, managed to walk away with the best costume prize amongst the teachers. I even got a cookie for it. I went dressed as a ninja, and I was a pretty convincing ninja if I do say so myself. I dressed all in black, I had a sword and a belt, I had the mask I had bought when I was in Japan. Then after work they announced that my classroom had won the best decoration prize too…my boss presented me with a bottle of wine…my co-workers weren’t too bitter about my win because I gave the bottle of wine to them to enjoy so it was like everyone had won.
Thursday night, while we were in our Korean class, the power suddenly went out. However it only went out in our wing of the school. Apparently we had been running a few too many space heaters, and blown a circuit. So we sat there in the dark for a little while, until our teacher found a new freezing classroom for us to study in. I was so tired that it was a good thing our classroom was so cold. It kept me awake.
Friday after work, I went home and did nothing. I cleaned my apartment. Did some laundry. Watched some TV…It was relaxing and refreshing. I need at least one evening a week to detox from my weeks here. I love my life in Korea, but it definitely isn’t conducive to relaxation. I learned in my Korean class that in Korean there is a word for someone who dies from overwork…Apparently it happens often enough that they needed a word for it. That’s just sad. I’ve decided that if I am going to stay here for a while longer I should work on sleeping more and eating right so that I don’t add to the statistics.
Saturday I just hung out with friends all day. We went to the temple in the morning, went shopping in the afternoon, had pizza in the evening, then went to the Halloween Performance of NANTA at night. I of course went decked out in my ninja costume, which meant that I was carrying a sword around with me all day. In about a week and a half Seoul will host the G20 summit, so they’ve really upped security everywhere, especially in the subways, so I got a lot of calculating stares from all of the police in the subway, until they realized that my sword was a wooden replica of a drama prop, and I don’t look like I would hurt a fly. Good thing I didn’t wear my ninja mask on the train. For a while I was afraid they were going to stop me and question me about why I had a sword, but no one said anything, they just gave me stranger than normal looks.
Well, that was the extent of my week. One of my favorite people that I’ve met since coming to Korea goes back to America tomorrow, and I’m very sad about that. Korea is going to seem a little more empty without her, hopefully the economy will remain bad enough to force her back to Korea…
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