Concerning five months

Yep, folks, it's official- I am over the five month mark. Weird. Especially so considering that as of 3 days from now I will have been here longer than England. A large part of me still totally feels like I am cheating on Norwich but oh well, it will always be my first love, we'll always have London. Last week...hmmm....stories. Oh, Columbia has started to regale me with K-pop (the loving term applied to Korean pop which is basically US music rewind 15 years to all of its nineties choreographed boy band glory, translate it into Korean except keep a few nonsensical English words for good measure and there you go). Their favorite, which Noah in particular really loves to bust out, is "I wan nobudynobudy buuuuuchoo cho cho I wan nobudynobudy buuuuchOO" which immediately brightens any phonics lesson. I did have to deal with the aftermath of a spontaneous fight in one of my classes which was shocking as this one is docile as a puppy- go figure that it wasn't my late afternoon seething-boiling-rage-at-being-alive teen class next door but the chipper 11 year olds. Meh, no matter, I soon set them to rights and gave them a stern talking to worthy of my father. I consider that an accomplishment given the language barrier.

I had pretty good food this week, come to think of it- I busted out some lemon garlic salmon with couscous on Tuesday. I cooked dinner for a friend Wednesday night but that was a humbler omelet and hashbrown attempt that turned out to be friend congealed potatoes that still tasted really good with ketchup. Whatever. Thursday, another friend and I had dinner at this great local place with these delightfully crazy ahjimas making fun of the Korean TV next to us and badgering me about when I was coming back to them. I tried ramen (or lamyeon to be all local about it) which was very Koreanized. Having watched the cultural masterpiece of accuracy on all things Japanese, "Ramen Girl" with Brittany Murphy, I knew enough about ramen (or thought I did) to expect a thin slice of pork something and egg and savory goodness. Yeah, Todo, we're in SoKo and the ramen follows suit. This was spicy, red, and with pepper vegetables floating around with the barest hint of egg. Huh. We also had some chumchi kimbop which is the tuna varietal of the Korean answer to sushi except substitute raw fish for lots o' veggies with cookied fish or meat. It. Was. Delicious. Mmmmm. That was a definite hit. Happily full, I waddled over to the move theater where we saw Avatar. Yeah, everything you've heard about it is basically true. Terrible acting. Wooden dialogue. Luscious graphics. When I got over being slightly nauseated and clutching my seat rests for support in the more dizzying scenes I did marvel along with the global masses, this is definitely a film for the history books.

Anywho, Friday was Friday. Somehow it was the end of the week which I am increasingly disoriented by how quickly the weeks are passing by. Level Eks convo was normal level...this week about the generation gap. Interesting perspectives on the conservative culture here- both in business, how younger workers are really really expected to hold the company up and are less glad to do so, how women in particular shouldn't smoke because it's not feminine (bit my lip) and how kids these days in general just seem to have missed the mark a bit. I did rally some points for the young side in making a case for the value of being allowed to make mistakes and revitalized creativity. Afterwords was also the same- although I did learn some more about the word "oppa" which was interesting. I said last week that younger girls call any guy in their same generation who is older than them "oppa" which literally means older brother. However, in addition to meaning that, it is also friend, baby, lover and a combination of all three. On the one hand, a lot of my guy friends say that guys LOVE to hear it because it means that they are regarded in a really good light by a younger girl and they immediately feel protective and want to spoil them and stuff. On the other hand, it can be misread as an opportunity to become romantic and make wives reeeeeeally jealous. Tricky barrier. I thought that was really interesting and pertinent as I am definitely getting to be good friends with some Korean guys a few years older so this is pretty important to get down. Bah! I'll never navigate the complexities of Korean culture.

Next morning, I slept in which was delicious and caught up on all of my American shows. I am proud I've logged in a borderline sad amount of TV watching because it really is a lifeline to home and it makes me feel connected so I can rationalize it in my head. That night, we all met the Korean teachers from my school for dinner and I ate...wait for it...FAJITAS! This is big, kids. Really big. Like Niel Armstrong big. Decent, authentic tasting Mexican. Not only in Soko, in Daejeon. Mhmmm. Good find. The company was also really fantastic, I had such a fun time talking with the other women. Most of them are in their late 20s or early 30s and really sweet adorable people. After dinner, we went to a bar and I had the most scrumptious raspberry mojito ever and then we went to another bar where a friend attempted to teach me to play pool. Poor fool. Haha. Needless to say, this will be repeated in the future, not bad evening. Sunday I got groceries (and went fruit crazy- tangerines, strawberries and grapefruit) and mopped as my floor was probably dirtier than...somewhere really dirty. We then met some friends for bowling. 2nd game I got a 92. For anyone who knows me this is pretty unheard of so I broadcast it proudly...especially as I got this random bath soap for getting a strike. Oh, Korea. There were these two Korean women who were bowling for the first time. They both bowled better than I did. One of them in particular, this little waif of a woman, had this uncanny ability to totter towards the lane like a bird (and nervously retreat back in these little panicky steps if she didn't like her approach) and gently, awkwardly, and consistently hone the ball towards the pins with the precision of a Russian missile. Go. Figure. After we went for ja jeon myeong so that made for a happy Becky. Today was a goodish day- no catastrophes and some nice belly laughs with some of my classes. There was this new kindergartener who was wandering the halls of ECC willy nilly and reducing one of my Odyssey classes to hysterics.

Anyways, nothing in particular on the horizon- busy end of session week and then...next session. But cheerful as always!

B