Here, There and Everywhere: We're Still Here

It's been a few weeks since we've posted anything, but I assure you we're still in Korea. I can tell by the smell coming in my window. It's gotten warm here and some of the smells that went away in the winter seem to have come back. Of course we also have a dog staying with us for the week so maybe it's him.

For those of you scratching your heads and wondering how we could possibly have a dog, I'll give you the Colesnotes version: our friends decided that Korea would be a good place to raise a puppy and so they bought a 3 month old Pointer a couple of months ago. They're back in Buffalo for ten days to attend a wedding and we volunteered to take care of Brody for duration of their trip. He's very cute and very full of energy.

We got an air conditioner last weekend. The process is a little bit more complex than it is back home. It cost us $500 and took a workman two and a half hours to install. He drilled through two concrete walls and now we have a massive A/C unit in our bedroom that can cool the whole apartment if we crank it up. We haven't actually used it yet and are hoping to survive with just our fan until July, but we might not make it. The summers here are supposed to be miserably hot. Although I read it was 33 degrees in Toronto today, but it felt like 41 with the humidity, so maybe we're on the right side of the ocean this weekend.

Meg showed up for work on Thursday to find only two cars in the school parking lot. She was greeted with the news that there were no classes today when she went to inquire as to where everyone was. She then went to her office wondering why nobody had told her she didn't have class. An couple of hours later her coworker called to tell Meg she wasn't supposed to come in today. Apparently the Vice Principal (one of only 4 people in the school) had seen Meg and was curious as to why she was in and so she called Meg's co-teacher. Meg's co-teacher, Yu Mi, told Meg that it was on the schedule that it was the school's birthday and there was no school today. So Meg pulled out the schedule they'd given her and comment to Yu Mi that the schedule they had given her said no such thing. So then Yu Mi told Meg that she had called us three time to tell us. Since we have call display on our phone, and our phone had not rung the previous night or in the morning, Meg found that a little hard to believe as well. In the end Meg left school around 11:30 and went home. Having gotten up at 6am to walk the dog and spent almost half a day at work because nobody had bothered to tell her Thursday was a holiday for her school. Needless to say, it wasn't the best day "off".

I had a substitute teacher this week because my co-teacher was in New Zealand on a school trip. I'm very happy the week is over, as the kids could care less about anything that came out of the substitute teacher's mouth. Which is probably a good thing since she kept saying things like "Lunchee", "Breakfast-eu", and 'Englishee". She also asked the kids if they "remembered the spell?". I think she was asking if they knew how to spell something, not if they were little witches and wizards in training. I felt like my mere presence in the room somewhat validated her horrendous English and thought more than a few times about just leaving. It wasn't the best week.

About a month ago Meg and I went to Buddha's Birthday celebrations in Seoul. We made some lotus lanterns and watched a parade. It was one of our better days here. I just realized I never posted any photos, so here are a few. Meg won a prize for her lantern (you can see her holding it below):