Never a dull day in Korea

Sept 26 2006

My day started off like usual, I had my cereal with my 200ml carton of free milk. I get free milk because the children get cartons of milk for free and whatever is left, one of my coworker saves it for me cause she knows how much I like to drink milk. I went to school and as usual I was there earlier than the regular english teacher. I had 4 classes in a row, lunch and then I was pretty much free up until 3:00 when I have my two teacher classes. Class went well enough although I realized that my explanations weren't thorough enough. I keep forgetting to picture what I'm doing thru the eyes of someone that DOESN'T SPEAK ENGLISH!! duh
Because it takes twice the amount of effort to get a simple thought across all the time, by the time the day was done, my energy level was nil. I trek home UPHILL with thoughts of my comfy bed motivating me to move one step in front of another. When I go thru my front door I looked up at my mailbox, a habit that usually disappoints me, and was pleased to find something sticking out of my mailbox! YES!!! I'VE GOT MAIL! haha that sounds like the AOL greeting from the movie you've got mail. I received Nem's postcard for me sent about 2 weeks ago. I was soo sure that I had given him the wrong address. BUT... It arrived, the edges a bit tattered but nevertheless HERE!!!
That was the first pleasant surprise. My second was coming back from dinner with Anne, I was approached by some guy who said a whole slur of korean before I could explain to him that I don't speak Korean. He then pointed to towards the stage set up behind him and gestured for me to sit down. I managed to get out from him that it was a magic show and free. I sat down and watched for a bit. It was nice I liked the idea that there was something like that in the community where people could just walk in from the streets and sit down and enjoy the local talents. I was a bit annoyed at how people just talked really loudly on their cellphones. They would walk a bit from their seats, cover their mouths THEN TALK REALLY LOUDLY. I thought it was rude but I'm not sure anyone else did. Maybe its not rude to talk on the phone if you at least give the impression that u're trying avoid disruption even if u fail miserably at it. At one point the MC of the night decided to sing a song... Simon would've torn her apart. It wasn't that she didn't have right kind of voice. It's the fact that while singing she decided to also be shy and girly which made it worse cuz she didn't sing loud first of all so we would hear bits and pieces. overall, Karaoke material but no Korean Idol. Finally at around 9 I decided to walk home and I figured I'd try to fix my bike. While assembling it I had gone around tightening every screw I saw not realizing that there were in fact some screws not meant to be tightened. So I ended up with a very noisy bike. That's what happens when u try to assemble a bike with a manual u can't understand.
In any case so I unlock my bike take it outside and try to fix it with Nem's instructions in my head. The problem was, sure Nem did draw a picture but... He's no artist and so the image I had in my mind of what he was talking about.. was completely off. So here I am with a screw in my hand and my bike upside down and just staring at the bike. I knew which screws I needed to reset for the gears but had no idea how to go about fixing the bike. Suddenly I realized there was a shadow over me I look up and see this middle aged man smiling at me like an angel sent from above. He spoke to me in Korean and even seemed to recognize me. He crouched down and rolled up him sleeves and took over. Half hour later he fixed my bike and I gestured to him that I wanted to buy him something to drink at the very least. He laughed and gestured no and patted me on the head. He held the door open for me and helped me bring my bike in and even locked the bike for me. We started to walk up the stairs and I thought O he must live in the same apartment as me. It turns out.. HE'S MY LANDLORD! but thus far, EVERY Korean I've encountered has been extremely warm and kind.

At the end of the day, I might not like the smog, or the smells and sometimes the work, but I love the people here.