God and Dinosaurs II: Blame Canada

So, I'm not entirely sure, but I'm starting to think this whole humans-coexisted-with-dinosaurs thing is much bigger among crazy Canadian evangelicals than among crazy United States evangelicals. I mean, sure, this is just anecdotal evidence, but... first of all, the first time I heard someone comment on the issue, it was a Canadian. I was thinking about this because I was just reading some article and through a series of clicked links I ended up on some Canadian Christianity site, reading a piece about a Canadian politician who "stood up for" Christianity a while back and ticked off a list of "beliefs" which he "defended": The earth is 6000 years old. Adam and Eve are (were?) real people. Humans lived alongside dinosaurs. And, maybe there was another belief, I forget.

I don't know, but I keep seeing Canadians spouting off about this, while U.S. evangelicals are concentrating on good old-fashioned pursuits like killing abortion doctors and stealing elections for Bush/Cheney. I did hear about that creation museum in Kentucky the other week, but since I haven't been there, how do I know the dinosaur you can ride with a saddle isn't in the Canadian wing? I'm just sayin' ...

Calling all Canadians, plus coffee and baseball

How much do I love extra innings? Answer: a lot, meaning last night's All-Star game was fantastic, in my book. I was more than happy to stay up 'til 2 a.m. watching (as Brian puts it) "free baseball." I was sad for my Atlanta Brave Brian McCann and his oh-so-close almost out tag at the plate that ended the game, mere centimeters from sending it into yet ANOTHER inning. Hooray, baseball!

I was kind of hoping the National League would win, not because (also as Brian puts it) I am a baseball fan polygamist (this is because Brian doesn't know what it's like to grow up in a sports town without a team for your favorite sport) but because the N.L. never wins. But I'm happy for my Red Sox, too. Also on my things to do list is to join the Dan Uggla fan club. He rules. I spent the last couple innings making fun of how the announcers kept talking about his error(s) because they are so dumb they have nothing worthwhile to say while they ignored the good plays he made that kept his team alive. I love that after the game reporters accosted Uggla with questions about his so-called "less-than-stellar" performance and he was like, "Whatever. I had a blast." Yay, him!

Today I was thinking about Canadians and about milk. Not at the same time. About Canadians I was wondering what all the Canadians I now know were thinking in '04 when many of us here in the U.S. would make only-half-joking comments such as, "If Bush wins the election I'm moving to Canada." I mean, did you take that as a compliment? Or as an insult, like it would take something that drastic to get us to consider living in your fair land? I'm so curious.

About milk - or even cream - I was thinking that size does matter. When I get my iced latte at Starbucks or my iced coffee at Dunkin' Donuts, I always get a medium (which is a "grande" at Starbucks). Any other size doesn't taste right. I was thinking about that today and I decided it's not really crazy. It's a milk to coffee ratio. Those franchises are so standardized and they dictate down to the pumps of cream or ounces of milk in a cup, right. So take DD. They have their little cream pump and if there's a certain amount in one pump, and that's perfect for a medium, you'd have to have the exactly proportionate ounce-wise amount less for the taste in a small to be perfect! But it's probably not. I think a medium is maybe 16 oz, so if a small is 12, then there'd have to be one and half pumps instead of two. But I think they would do ONE pump instead of two. Or whatever. See what I mean? Ditto on the Starbucks iced lattes, where it's even more crucial. I loathe the taste of tall ( = small) and venti ( = large) iced lattes. But grande is just right.

OK, that was my Goldilocks coffee moment.

"A distant nation my community..."

This week was amazing, and it turned out to be the most beautiful Thanksgiving I have ever had.

It seems like a lifetime ago, but it was only last Monday night, that on my way out of work I sent an e-plea to just about every American I know asking them to please help me find Thanksgiving, lost over here as I am among Koreans, Canadians, and the occasional Brit who couldn't care less.

I had hit my "wall," that unproven and yet incontrovertible point that you reach after a certain amount of time spent in a foreign land or similarly strange endeavor. I personally have a theory, developed 40 days into my last stay in a foreign country a few years ago, that the Bible is right on for having all of these hardships like fasts in the desert, life on an ark, and so forth come to an end after 40 days and 40 nights. I think that is the limit of human endurance, and apparently God knows it!

And so I reached my 40th day and 40th night in Korea last week, and I was sick of the frustrations, especially the food or lack thereof. Not to mention that seeing the movie Elizabethtown had sent me careening into a tailspin of nostalgia for the U.S. So naturally it was splendid timing that I was heading into Thanksgiving week, when every American gathers with a bunch of people to have a mouth-watering feast, while I sat over here lonely and embittered, surrounded by people oblivious to my holiday.

But then a strange thing happened, straight off a different page of the Bible, if you will: ask, and ye shall receive! The e-mails poured in all week, and every day I got to read more Thanksgiving plans, anecdotes, tales of holidays spent abroad, recipes, and even epiphanies. How I delighted in them! Some were hilarious, some of the food descriptions made me salivate, and some of the tidings brought a tear to my eye.

Also, on my way home from work Monday after sending that gang e-mail, I met a new American friend on the subway, as if I had conjured him up! He ended up inviting me to the turkey-with-all-the-trimmings dinner he and his wife hosted Sunday afternoon, so I got to have a little American Thanksgiving after all!

I really did a lot of thinking this week. The main thing I thought about, in the face of all this Thanksgiving goodness, was how extremely lucky I am, really, when it comes to food. I mean, sure, I've got some issues here in Korea, but what is a seaweed allergy or meat in my tofu compared to how many people the world over are starving? Just - starving, with no recourse. I have never had to go to bed hungry a day in my life. If in last week's blog entry I was fixated on the portion of the Designing Women episode where they indulge in visions of desirable food, my next few days were spent in heavy contemplation along the lines of Suzanne Sugarbaker's realization in the very same episode.

(Those of you who haven't seen it really need to flip over to Lifetime; according to their website that episode is coming up December 12! Or order up the "Best of Designing Women" DVD: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000A7W13/qid=1133094198/sr=11-1/ref=sr_11_1/104-9588273-4272705)

So, Thursday came. I woke up and flipped on CNN International as I do many a morning and what should greet me but a UNICEF spot showing starving children all over the world. I stood there transfixed by the imagery of what I had been thinking about all week in a state of sheer helpless gratitude, and I thought about how I might try to be a bit less helpless and a bit more grateful while I'm here on Earth.

I walked to work past Camp Henry as always and noted that the gate was closed, the place shut down in observance of the holiday. At Dunkin Donuts, as one of my two friends who work there made my iced coffee and the other rang me up, one said in Korean "something something get the Chuseok something," Chuseok being the word for Korean Thanksgiving. Well, they gave me some chocolates as a little "Happy Thanksgiving Day" present! They're so fun.

At work, I did a Thanksgiving-themed pre-school and got my kids excited about "Linda teacher's" American holiday. We practiced writing "turkey, pumpkin, corn, squash" on paper lined with turkeys I photocopied, we colored cornucopias, and we even sang "Over the River and Through the Woods." They weren't bad! My ten-year-old class later in the afternoon did a little better with the lyrics, I must admit. In my level 5 classes, which are learning about any/some and much/many, "Is there any bread? Yes there is some bread. Are there any potatoes? Yes there are some potatoes. Is there much rice? Yes there is a lot of rice..." etc., I drew a giant table on the board and had them draw each item as we practiced the grammar, throwing in a few Thanksgiving words such as "Is there much stuffing? Are there many yams? Is there any pie?" Then when we had drawn our feast we did Thanksgiving word searches with our new vocabulary. Great fun.

After work, I sought out an Indian restaurant -- that's right, Indian, only my second favorite cuisine in the world -- that I had found in a newly discovered guide to Daegu restaurants. It took some doing to find it, but when I reached it I rejoiced and praised and sat in my cushioned window seat gazing down at strollers and shoppers and nightlifers, blissful and content in my personal ironic twist on Thanksgiving dinner.

I am certain that I will never experience Thanksgiving the same way after this year. I have caught the spirit of this holiday like never before. Now, I have for some time fancied myself an earthy-crunchy bleeding heart, but I never had the understanding of what it's all about that I glimpsed this time around. I felt so close to everyone who sent me Thanksgiving tidings from so far away. It was all so good and familiar. And y'all were making some scrumptious sounding meals and desserts! I had more than one friend give props to Martha Stewart (yea, Martha!) There were plans to gather everyone for the first time in years, new nephews, first-time turkey cookers, plans to try new tastes in brining the turkey or even to roast an entire pig. There were tales of Thanksgivings in, among other places, France, Germany, Poland, Ireland, and Kuwait. In short, it was phenomenal.

Today, Sunday, I attended the American Thanksgiving gathering of 20+ people at my new friend's place. There were the hosts, a thirtysomething couple and their far-too-charming two-year-old daughter. (The wife is a veterinarian in the Army -- how fascinating is that? -- who takes care of all the pets of the personnel as well as military working dogs and whatnot. Who knew?) There were several barely-a-day-past-twenty young military folk, including some couples and another two-year-old, a Korean couple and their two children, that woman's Korean sister, an Irish English teacher and his Korean wife, another Korean woman who runs an English school and her son, and a Canadian English teacher. There was baked turkey, smoked turkey, ham, potatoes, gravy, broccoli casserole, vegetables and dip, stuffing, yams, cranberry sauce, a plethora of desserts like fudge, cake, rice krispie treats and two kinds of pie...oh, I know I'm forgetting things, but I'm not forgetting the wonderful time I had there.

And I will now turn over this blog to the words of my friends, because they did so much for me this week. Instead of over-indulging in food this year, I ate a decent amount of delicious food but feel full of pure joy. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

This is just a sampling of what I received:

"We're going to be up early Thursday to start chopping things, and will have the parade on T.V. I'm trusting that you were being honest about this stuff not making you feel worse when I say that, if you were here, you could come over at about 11:00am and curl up on the couch with the new kitty and watch the parade while Chris and I cook and bring you shrimps and cheese and wine." (that's Liza Hostetler, my merch-it-up partner in crime) ..."Thanksgiving is more than just a bunch of Americans eating over a dinner table, it's appreciating the greatest gift of all - friendship. I guess I realized that while living in Ireland though there were subtle highlights growing up --- aside from you meeting up with the family during this time. You would also take this time to meet up with friends from your neighborhood, high school or even college now"..."My grandma always cooks this huge dinner, with this huge roast that she always makes a little too well done. This year she called my mom (her daughter) and said that she didn't think she could afford the roast this year. My father offered to buy the roast. It reminds me of some kind of tiny Tim story or something"..."In addition to the gourmet spread, we play lots and I mean LOTS of games. This year, we're set to introduce the Thanksgiving Trivia Bowl featuring categories that all begin with, "Thankful for..." followed by the 80's, TV, Baby Boomers, etc. With a bevy of prizes, this will certainly be a lively game. Note to self, must find buzzers tonight"..."My best piece of advice is grab yourself a plastic bag, stop by one of those street vendors, get the frying pan ready and hold your nose as you take your first delectable bite of the Thanksgiving Eel. You never know, you may start a new tradition!!!"...And high-school friend Shelly Hendricks Longenecker wrote, "At the grocery store I was standing in the green bean section -- green bean casserole of course -- along with 5 other fellow Americans looking at a 1/2 filled section of green beans. And it hit me: tomorrow our country - our great, diverse country will be unified by tradition. We will be eating the same things, watching the same things, having the same silly arguments with friends, hopefully we will all be sharing what we are thankful for and all be celebrating what this great country is founded on -- freedom. And I looked at the guy on my left and the lady on my right and I remembered that we are all the same."

The Lonely Hearts' Club

I so love commune's, the small bar/hangout in central Daegu that serves as a watering hole where the foreign teacher crowd gathers. Amid the layers of neon glare in the streets of Jungangno, commune's waits with its blue sign and lowercase English: "commune's lonely hearts club." I went back last night. I can definitely see Wednesday nights there being a regular thing. Last night I stayed later than the week before and talked to a bunch of people. The place really fills up later in the evening.

The owner, who speaks English (like, really speaks it) plays the best music ever on a sound system linked to his computer, and you can sit there at the bar and request good stuff and he'll pull it right up. I spent some time with a couple of guys (one Irish, one American) who have been teaching English for years in various countries. They have great taste in music and we found a lot of common ground, everything from Bob Dylan and Neil Young through U2 and Radiohead to the Killers and the Decembrists. It was a great evening with fabulous conversation about music, life, love, Korea, and anything else important we could think of.

There were other fun people around, too. There was even a funny moment when one guy said he loves his job and I said I didn't imagine I would ever utter that exact statement in the course of this year. He asked where I work and when I told him he said, "Oh!" His girlfriend worked for a different branch of my school when she first came here, three years ago, and she quit after six months and found a better job at a different school. She has been happy as a clam ever since. My school has a bit of a reputation, it seems.

Now, I suppose I should count my blessings that I'm at a reputable place that's not totally illegitimate or shady, or that doesn't pay the teachers on time, or something like that. Still, it's hard not to envy someone making close to the same salary to work 10 a.m.- 5 p.m. (as opposed to my 10:30 or 11:00 to 8:30). There's a whole network of people who put in their year at a brutal school or a frustrating one, then find a great gig and never look back. I can see where this teaching English abroad thing can be really addictive. Will I re-up at the end of this year, you are asking yourself? That shall not be revealed at this time...

Today at work I was chatting with one of my Canadian co-workers. He and his wife have been staying out of the "scene" here (expats in general and foreign teachers in particular). In one way, it's a lot easier for the marrieds, because they can be a world unto themselves. He pointed out that they don't have to seek out communication, social life, English-speaking, lifestyle, etc., because it's all found in each other. He also said he's wary of the way the expat scene often turns into a bitch-and-moan fest about what's wrong with Korea, our jobs, and so forth. I am wary that, too, especially because I never imagined I'd be that. But I can't deny that it does feel really good at times to talk to people who understand exactly what I'm going through.

I won't get into all the frustrating things about the job right now. I'm still working it all out, of course. Most of my classes are starting to gel. I'm beginning to understand the interpersonal dynamics of the staff. Oh, pesky office politics!

This week (my sixth, amazingly) was far better than the last two, although my pre-school would not sit still or shut up for more than about thirty seconds at a time. I guess they felt they did their part being quiet last week when I was sick in the throat and for two days had practically no voice. Nah, they probably can't recall what happened ten minutes ago, let alone last week. Oh, I'm kidding! I adore my pre-school! But they need some serious help in the sharing and cooperating department, so I'm trying to work those into my curriculum.

My least favorite class this week was still the level 10 eleven-year-olds. They sunk to a low point last week and are not interested in rising any time soon. Three of the boys are bored studying English and have decided to act up big time. They can get really nasty. I haven't decided the best way to approach it. I'm thinking about the To Sir With Love method of treating them like adults so I can expect them to behave like adults. They're so far beyond the baby games with which I entertain lower levels. Still, they're not adults, or even teenagers like Sidney Poitier had. Plus, he spoke (pretty much) the same language as his students. My problem students think English is hard and boring, and they stop trying to listen, even though they're advanced enough to understand more than they will let themselves.

Meanwhile, one of my favorite classes is turning out to be the one that was just plain awful the first couple of weeks! It's a level 8 class of nine- and ten-year-old boys. Now, they are some seriously maniacal little hooligans, but oh, how they've grown on me! They love to beat each other up and speak in Korean, but their English comprehension is fantastic. The Korean teacher who formerly taught that class with me left (she had given her notice and left this job about three weeks after I started), and she was part of the problem, arguing back to them in Korean and just generally approaching it as, "I can't control them, they won't speak English, they don't understand." As soon as I found out that another Korean teacher with whom I teach four classes and am pretty friendly was taking over that hooligan class, I was so happy! We have transformed it in a couple of weeks. They are still crazy, but their participation has done an about face. I think they're really good kids at heart.

Teaching. Sometimes I like it; most of the time it is just so tiring! (It probably doesn't help that I get very little nourishment here.) I teach eight classes on Monday and Wednesday, five on Tuesday and Thursday, and seven on Friday. Pre-school is every day from 11-12. Other classes meet M-W-F or T-Th, except my one-on-one conversation tutoring session that is just twice a week, M-W. That one-on-one would be the best part of my week if I weren't so tired but the time I drag myself in there at 7:30 p.m. Then there are the dastardly notebooks of lesson plans, the great void into which hours of our days are sucked. We also have a weekly meeting on Tuesday, a project on Thursday, and telephone teaching sessions. Telephone teaching consists of calling our students at home to get them speaking English outside the classroom. It's just a few questions, but at 2-5 minutes per student the time adds up.

Also, phone teaching pretty much has to be done in the evening, so don't count on getting out of there before nine on days when you have a lot of kids to reach. The great part is the initial conversation of getting the student on the phone. I've learned to say in Korean, "Hello. This is Linda teacher. Is Joey home?" When the answer is no, it just spirals downward from there. It helps if they're at taekwando (we can make out that word!) and some parents can say, "Uh, no, Gina piano. Nine clock." But sometimes it's just a string of Korean to which I say, "OK, no Patty?" and then "Thank you" in Korean. It's a good time.

All three of the Canadians I work with (not sure about the Brit) plan to be teachers when they return home. It's a little bit better paying and frankly a better respected job in Canada than in the States. I'm not so sure. I think I still like teaching and training, but this job makes me think if I never stand in front of another classroom the rest of my life I'll be just fine with that. My supervisors think I'm better with the older students than the young ones. I completely agree (with the exception of pre-school). Many days I wish I were teaching adults. That's yet another reason I like the one-on-one: it's with an adult, the branch manager of the bank that's in our building. His bank was bought by an American bank, so he's coming to us to improve his conversational English.

But the smart kids are so wonderful! As are the ones who behave. As for the communication problems between the Korean teachers and the foreign teachers, they're an inherent part of this system, really. I am starting to see that what we perceive as ridiculous behavior, insensitivity, or oblivion is so often insecurity about speaking English to us. I mean, this is their actual job, not some "finding myself" year abroad. They are clearly investing themselves in teaching English and have worked really hard at studying and mastering it, and then we just blow in and are probably seen as pretty cavalier. No matter how much they've worked and accomplished with the English language, they will still make mistakes and they know it.

I was talking with an assistant director about this when she did my evaluation/class discussions last week. She is really cool and confident, even though her English is nowhere near perfect, and she told me a lot of them are almost afraid to speak to the five of us (English Native Teachers) sometimes, whereas we're over here perceiving it as, "Why don't they ever tell us what's going on?!" Oh, life is so interesting.

I kind of wish my fellow foreign teachers weren't so irritated by the Korean teachers all the time. We're all just human beings, you know? We're all in this together.

Speaking of forgetting that other people are humans, I haven't heard too much about W's Asian sojourn. I heard some of his buttering up of Japan, and I know he's got issues with China, but I haven't heard much about Korea other than that "the North" is on the agenda in addition to APEC.

When I read the Korean proclamation of independence a few days ago, I was struck by a line that in 1919 referred to Korea and Japan, and which I was thinking about vis-a-vis the U.S. and Iraq today amid questions of "should we stay or should we go?" But I suppose it could refer to a whole host of situations:

"Ought not the way of courage be to correct the evils of the past by ways that are sincero[sic], and by true sympathy and friendly feeling make a new world in which the two peoples will be equally blessed?"
--the proclamation, written in stone in Seoul's Tapgol Park

Remember Veterans, Remember Pepero

So November 11 is a holiday here - sort of.

It's "Pepero Day." Or "Bepero Day." (P and B are very close friends around here.) We foreign teachers remain unsure of exactly how to say it, is it PEP-per-row (like the start of pepperoni?) or Beh-PAIR-oh? Because we all had kids in our classes saying it both ways. Then again, there isn't really syllable stress in Korean as we know it in English.

At any rate, what happens on Pepero Day is that you get lots and lots of pepero, which are these little cookie wafer sticks dipped in chocolate and packaged and sold by the gazillion so that you can give them to friends and family and loved ones on November 11. Like Valentine's candy, perhaps, those little hearts with random messages.

Many of my students brought me pepero! We were all drowning in it! I have more than I could eat in six November 11ths! The Canadian married couple teachers had bulging backpacks of it, too, and she's diabetic and doesn't eat it, so he gets it all, and no way can he eat all that.

We're told that this pepero occasion falls on 11/11 because all those 1s in the date look like the sticks, you see. Or, the sticks look like the 1s. Or something.

Meanwhile, the Canadians were asking, "Are we going to celebrate Remembrance Day or what?" I gathered that that was their version of U.S. Veterans Day. Then we had a little North American cultural exchange talking about the differences in the ways our two countries celebrate the holiday. They are all very big on the moment of silence at 11:11 a.m., so much so that one even had his Korean pre-schoolers observe the moment. I had to be honest and tell them a lot of people kind of blow off Veterans Day in the U.S.: they'll notice their mail isn't getting delivered but are more likely to "observe" a holiday if it's a three-day weekend. I tried to represent us well, but come on: that's kind of true, isn't it? What did *you* do to commemorate the day? I did say the President (or in this case, the "President") might lay a wreath at Arlington, and there are parades and such. I think the Canadians do a little bit better with this one, folks. Sorry. Canada 1, U.S. 0

Apart from armistice, we've been talking about things, the Canadians and I, this week. I loved how one put it: "The great thing about living in Canada is you are totally invited to the party (U.S.) and get to enjoy everything, but then late at night when the party gets all messed up, you don't have to stay." A fantastic analogy!

I went to Costco with the Canadian marrieds on Friday after work. The prior English teacher in their apartment, whom they replaced this summer, bequeathed them her Costco card. I bought yogurt, soup, frozen hash browns, a big ol' jug of salsa (well, Pace picante sauce) and some tortillas. Hurrah! On the way home, we had a very nice cab driver. They handed him some of their pepero when they got out of the cab. It was like the most natural thing in the world.

Oat and Abote

All right, let's see then, where was I? Oh, right, Korea. The mind -- still -- boggles.

I've been away from the blog for a few days! Don't worry, I didn't make a run for the border, although I did see a guy walking with a Taco Bell cup on the street near my house. I knew the answer even before I approached him, as you can surely bet I did: he's Army, the Taco Bell is on base (I'd heard tell of such wonders over the barbed wire), and no, there isn't yet secretly another one anywhere off-base in the city. I shall have to make do with Subway, Burger King, and that still-in-the-future pilgrimage to the Mexican restaurant in Seoul.

So. Have I really not posted about this weekend? Gosh, I haven't even had that exciting of a week; I just have been sort of sick, distracted, and pensive. You know me.

This week's ailment is of the throat. My roommate has it too and is about two days ahead of me in its cycle, so I clearly blame her. The great thing about it is that late yesterday afternoon I began to lose my voice, which is really convenient when I have eight classes to teach today! But I made it through somehow. I made them play lots of Pictionary. Every lesson from the grammar books can be made into a Pictionary game; that's my new motto.

On Saturday I had the first vague traces of the illness, so while I wanted to adventure, I also wanted to keep it mellow. I went to Gyeong-ju, a city about 65 km from Daegu, and a real tourist town. As in, when I got off at the bus station I saw multiple other foreigners eating in the cafe, and there was a souvenir shop in the bus depot. Gyeong-ju is described as an open-air museum, where around every corner you can spot another temple, relic, monument, grave of a famous general, pagoda...while at the same time it now has a bustling shopping-eating area, hotels and the like, and a population of a couple hundred thousand. There is also a ton of hiking.

I wasn't up for a strenuous climb, as I mentioned, but I spent the day strolling around two of the city's parks that are famous for their "tumuli." These are tombs that are mounds in the earth; they look like huge bumps covered over with grass and in them are buried many an ancient royal from days of old kingdoms. I mean, some of these tombs are from, say, the 9th century! They are the Silla Kingdom's answer to the Egyptian pyramids. A few have been excavated during this century, so they have found things like gold crowns and some names, and thus been able to date them. Of note to Swedes and Swedophiles: one was done with the participation of Prince Gustav Albert V (I think) around 1926, and there is a big plaque honoring him at the tomb he excavated.

I sat there munching my banana in the big, open Noseo-dong Tombs park, leaves of brown piling up on the just-yellowing crisp grass, surrounded by mounds of earth under which lie the royal dead. Schoolchildren in navy uniforms gathered, and some even sat atop the mounds themselves, while others stuck to the benches and lowlands. Couples strolled hand in hand; it was a regular Saturday afternoon, and this was the place to chill in Gyeong-ju. I became inspired, for the first time, to take some pictures! Since I hadn't brought along my camera (a cheap ol' thing that is somewhere in my not-yet-unpacked bag-o-tricks in Daegu, along with extra medicine and my winter scarves), I actually went into a convenience store down the street, bought a disposable camera, and went back to the park so that I could photograph these tumuli. They're really strange, and cool.

Then I walked on to the next park, and on my way I tried some traditional Gyeong-ju bread, piping hot out of the oven. I guess it's a baked wheat dumpling with red bean paste, although it tasted much better than any red bean pastry I've had in Daegu. There was a shop about every ten feet selling it in Gyeong-ju. Claim to fame.

Wolseong Park, my second stroll, was a huge expanse of rolling tumuli and clumps of trees. There were many other sojourners, including a massive group of adolescents clearly on a school trip. The brave ones said "Hello!" in English to me, as many Korean teens are wont to do when they spot a foreigner, all giggly and proud of themselves. Some of this crowd carried the conversation even further, past "How are you?" and into "I'm great, too."

Wolseong has, among other things, a still standing ice house from the fabled castle Banwolseong, and an old astronomical observatory tower built around the year 640(!)called Choemseongdae. The round tower is small, but interesting: it has 12 stones in its foundation for the months of the year, 30 layers of stones for the days of the month, and a total of 366 stones.

I also had my second delicious Korean meal, in a restaurant plucked straight out of my Lonely Planet guidebook, consisting of fried rice, mushrooms, and a whole bunch of vegetables. (All hail Lonely Planet!) All in all, it was a relaxing day and I will definitely revisit Gyeong-ju in order to see the fascinating temple I missed and do some hiking.

Sunday was Daegu day. I am in a routine, I would say, of galavanting to other places on Saturdays and spending Sundays walking around my fair city. This past Sunday, the 6th, was particularly nice weather and I walked a quite a bit in the afternoon, reflecting on my imminent one-month anniversary of being here. Among the interesting things I saw were the Kondulbawi Rock, a centuries-old attraction. Its shape supposedly looks like an old man with a traditional hat on (though, like Timpanogas, I didn't see it on first inspection; I'm sure I will eventually, just as I now can see nothing but the outline of the woman when I look at Timp). It's on a once-stream-now-irrigation-canal outside an old Confucian academy area, so people have come to this rock for many years to contemplate. I contemplated a little there as well.

I spent the evening downtown in the bright neon clangy shopping restaurant nightlife blitz of streets that is central Daegu. I allowed myself to dine at a Western restaurant (also part of my new Sunday tradition) but Bennigan's was a disappointment (no house salad unless you order a steak or seafood dinner? An outrage!)

And then it was back to work, and after last week at work I was none too thrilled about that prospect, let me tell you. Oh, it's hard to put my finger on exactly why. Last week was extremely busy, and I have to do a lot of new teacher stuff right now such as fill out a report about each level of instruction, and do a report on each of my classes with the Korean Teacher for that class, and all of this is due at once, and so forth. But more than that, the little nit-picking ways coupled with lack of communication are getting very Dilbert-esque. Furthermore, one of my classes is out of control: adolescents who don't want to be there. I won't get into all the details, but suffice it to say last Friday I was very happy to leave Ding Ding Dang at the end of the day.

Resolved, undaunted even, on Monday morning, I donned a nice black shirt, gathered my hair in a loose bun at the nape of my neck, looped a paisely bandana through my jeans, looked myself straight in the mirror eyes, and said, "Give 'em hell!" Sure enough, the class in question went all right on Monday (they're testing me, I know it, these eleven-and twelve-year-old hooligans are just testing me and seeking attention, but it doesn't make it any less worrisome that things will get ugly in the meantime). The problem is far from solved, though: today's class was a slide back down the slope. But things will be fine, I'm sure. Hey, it's already Wednesday! Another weekend approaches! I hope my throat gets better.

Tuesday we had a pre-school outing, a train trip to Cheongdo. Now, you have not really lived until you have tried to herd dozens of pre-schoolers onto the express train in a strict three minute time limit. It was our Suseong branch plus two other branches of the Ding Ding Dang school, and there was an absolute sea of four-to-six-year-olds dotted with Korean teachers and a dozen foreigners. I must give credit where credit is due, however: these kids are on the whole remarkably well behaved. There are many days when pre-school is my favorite class. They're certainly a better lot than the aforementioned troublesome pre-teens. And it's rather heartwarming when they are all aglow with their field trip excitement in the morning and they come running up to "Linda teacher! Linda teacher!" jostling and fighting over who gets to hold my hand as we walk.

We ate lunch on the mini-plaza outside the train station, the kids ran around in the autumn leaves throwing them at each other, we sang songs, we took pictures, and then we rode the train back to Daegu. Outing day lunch consists of kim bap (rice and vegetables wrapped in seaweed) and chicken. My vegetarian-allergy combination strikes again. The school's director came along on this massive outing and he saw me not really digging in and actually remembered, "Oh, you don't eat chicken--and you can't eat seaweed!" He found tangerines for me. I thought that was kind of nice, seeing as I barely remember talking to him about my food issues; I believe it happened in the car the first day he picked me up at the Daegu station while I was in my two-days-no-sleep-welcome-to-Asia haze.

I was really not hungry, though, as my throat was firing up, and I spent the time looking on at the munchkins and chatting with the Canadian teachers about what would happen if a military action began here. "You're lucky," one of them told me, "'cause if the North invades you get to go on base. We have to wait and only get saved once all the Americans are safe."

Although I personally think we, and by we I do not in any way mean myself, are far more likely to launch this military action than "the North," I thought that was funny. I told them I'd smuggle them in with me in my duffel bag. "Just don't say 'sore-y' [sorry] and don't say 'oat'[out]," I warned them.

Tonight, those two Canadians (the married couple) took me out for a beer at this place called Commune's, a foreigners' bar/music venue/place to chill out downtown. Commune's Lonely Hearts Club. Lots of the English teachers gather there and it's low lit, down some steps, mellow, and perfect! We talked a good deal about life, the school, being in Korea, misbehaving miscreant children (I'm not the only one suffering!), past teachers who have bailed on their contracts because they were so miserable, and all kinds of good commiserating like that. One of them is also 30 and taking decisive steps to finally figure out what to do with his life, so we have common ground. It was fun.

In Commune's you actually have decent beer and other people around you speaking English and a very familiar (Western) feel, so then you step back onto the garish street where you blink in the face of a hundred flashing signs reminding you of your illiteracy, and you think, "Oh, I'm still in Korea."

One guy I met at Commune's tonight made a good point about the language thing, when I posed my nagging question: "Why do they look at us like we have three heads when we try to speak Korean in the markets and such?" He said I have to remember that foreigners are so rare here that no one is used to hearing Korean spoken with an accent at all, the way we are all so used to hearing English with an accent all the time. I hadn't thought about it that way.

My latest Korean language misadventure was last night trying to procure something resembling Nyquil. I actually don't want the real thing, as it's Proctor and Gamble and I don't buy the big PG, but I want fake Nyquil or "Faquil" (as [lying jackass] christened it). There is no over-the-counter medicine in the markets here but there are pharmacies sprinkled around, so I popped in the one by my house last night on the way home. Oh, my dictionary and I sure gave it the ol' college try, but beyond "cold-medicine-liquid-sleep-throat" I somehow could not get across my wish that it all appear in one nighttime-sniffling-sneezing-coughing-aching-fever-so-you-can-rest medicine. I drank the last dose of my "Faquil" last night, but I did not throw out the bottle. It's in my backpack, along with a list of those words translated into Korean, so I can show the whole thing to the pharmacist next time and hope for the best.