Foreigner Fridays - Friday Nov. 23, 2007

Again, I manged to fall behind in journal entries. Let's see what I remember...

I was pretty stoked about it being Friday. I think I was ready for the weekend.

I helped 1-2 teacher with her open class. She did it on "Do you like pizza" which is supposed to be my next topic to teach in my English class. Seeing as how half of the first grade teachers have already taught it for either their open class or for the hell of it, perhaps I should only spend 2 weeks on it. It's actually quite convenient considering I have four weeks left and two lessons to still teach.

The parents had brought snacks in like they do after every open class, so afterward we sat down with the VP who was there to watch the class. The parents had set today's snack up incredibly classy like; glass teacups, little cookies, rum filled chocolates (in school...), etc. I was slightly bored throughout the discussion since I can't understand anything, but the food was good. After that discussion, I then got to hear an outline of what I'm supposed to do next Friday in front of the principal; dress up like a wolf, sing a song, dance, etc. I should get paid extra for the costume. Just kidding! It's not really that big of deal to me, but I like messing it the teacher who is making me do it.

After school, I chilled until the host rents got home. We ate a late dinner, and I went late to my Friday meeting. There was a man over with his family that my host father is friends with (the fish club man). We ate raw fish; apparently they love to eat it as much as they love to look at it and nurture it....strange concept to me.

Though Kata is gone, there is a new foreigner or two in the group on Fridays. Kata was slowly warming up to me right as she had to leave for Germany, but for some reason, I find most foreigners I talk to in South Korea incredibly annoying. At first I really liked this girl (her name is Ashey and she is from South Africa.), but she soon went over the top and...well... I'm sure she'll warm up to me too. The topic for this week was Blind Dates, and we had to discuss whether we've been on them, if we think we can find our soul mates, if we think it's dangerous, etc. Blind dating is HUGE in South Korea! One explanation I heard is that men spend so much time working that they can't take the time to naturally meet someone. One guy in my group said that a few years ago, he would go on blind dates twice a week. I have never been on a blind date, and I don't intend to ever go on one. I think we agreed as a group that blind dates are uncomfortable and unnatural. We also talked about our perfect dates, blind date or not. One of the most romantic ones was, "Every date would be perfect if I found the right person." There was also an older professor there who has been married for a number of years. He has so many wonderful thoughts but can't share them in English; he is sensitive and caring and thinks in a very unique way. We asked him to share something about his wife. He told us that the first day he met his wife in university, he said, "I'm going to marry you," and they got married four years later. He told us that he writes poems to her even still, and told us that he would explain more next time, because he couldn't share everything due to a lower English ability. I really like him. He seems very genuine.

After the meeting, we headed to the Makkoli bar around the corner; Ashley did not come with us, because she had a going away party to get to. I talked to Allan most of the time about politics. He is an automotive engineer, I think, but he is helping Mr. Muun with his presidential campaign. He told me about his platform and told me to talk to my host dad about it. LOL! A story for another time. I talked to most of the guys that were there; there weren't many women this time.

I got home around 12:30PM, which is a good thing, because I was exhausted.