Washing Things Semi-Clean

I tell ya, this "drying rack" crap is for the birds. Give me a damn dryer! My clothes are more wrinkly than a 90 year old smoking farmer and some are still not dry. My washing machine is a real piece of Korean engineering, too. I can't read Korean, so I pressed a few buttons and got it started. About 7 or 8 minutes into the 59 minute cycle, it starts buzzing intermittently at me. I open the little crapper up and notice that it's trying to spin, but failing. It'll budge about an inch and then give up. So, I pressed some buttons, which only added more time to the cycle, but didn't change the failing spin. I tell myself to let it do its thing, as the timer is still counting down despite red lights flashing at me, and leave the room to cook dinner.

As I'm sitting there eating ma pasghetti, I hear it start to wheeze and squeak. I stop eating and peek into the bathroom to make sure she isn't smoking in there. Smoking inside my apartment is a huge no-no. She's not, but she begins this routine that you can imagine perfectly if you picture a volcano beginning to rumble and build up momentum before an eruption (minus the smoke, of course). Suddenly, she kicks into this fervent spin that increases in intensity until it sounds like the generator room at Hoover Dam. I'm not kidding, it was that loud. I was afraid my landlord would come down and make sure I wasn't conducting nuclear experiments in my apartment. She finished about ten minutes later and my apartment was eerily quiet. It's probably because I was half deaf.

She leaked a little water, but I assume she got my clothes at least semi-clean. They smelled ok, so I put them on the rack to dry. Now they're all wrinkly and gross and damp. What am I going to wear tomorrow? All my best dresses are unwearable! I guess I have to invest in an iron. I didn't want to, because they're like $50, but I may have to take the plunge, lest I look like a loser with all these fashionable Koreans around me. Image is everything here. I'm not even joking.

This morning, I awoke to the delicate falling of snow. That's right, kids, while you're enjoying early Spring in the ol' U.S., Korea is getting bogged down with nasty brown snow. It's funny, because the Koreans do not know how to prepare for or react to something like this. Traffic was terrible and the roads were not cleared at all. It was treacherous to even walk to school, but I relented, as did the precious children, and school was on as normal. Well, almost normal. I saw a couple of kids skip out of my class to go throw snowballs at each other, but I didn't tell my co-teacher. I say let the kids have fun. They're tested and worn down their entire childhood. Let them have a good time when they can get it. So, on to the nuts and bolts...

With every epic failure comes a time of contemplation and eventual success, given you keep trying. Since I really have no choice but to keep trying, I gave teaching another shot today. I did tolerable for self-evaluation, and my co-teacher even said that she liked what I was doing and that it was a success today. I like hearing that. I wouldn't call it a roaring unanimous success, but I'm much more comfortable now and am somewhat confident going into tomorrow's lessons. It's a good feeling. I can see myself getting more ballsy with teaching as time goes on.

In the afternoon, my co-teacher and I discussed one of the extra-curricular classes that I'll be teaching beginning at the end of March. The class is currently directionless, but I threw some ideas out and she was open to them. This boy gets the chance to be creative with the kids. The morning lessons are all strictly textbook, so getting creative is severely limited. I want to have fun in the afternoon classes, so I think the kids will have fun too. I'm going to start off with "School Year's Resolutions," a lesson that will get the kids using the future tense and also learning about the Western custom of coming up with New Year's Resolutions. Then, I think we're going to do a play of some sort over three lessons. I'd like to throw in some random stuff like "create your own country!" and "let's write a song!" Of course, when American holidays come around, I'll be incorporating those into the lessons. There's one in the works for the 4th of July, and I'll definitely have a Halloween themed lesson when the time comes. It's going to be fun, and I'm getting excited about it. I'll make use of that blue screen, too, damn it. It's too good to pass up.

So, hopefully some time this year I'll have some video for you folks so you can see what my kids are up to. They are pretty funny. Today, as I was going around helping the kids with the activity, they were ecstatic when I sat down at their table. Well, either ecstatic or overly shy. Some of them are not confident in their English ability and I can't get those few to speak at all. Looks like I've got a challenge ahead of me in that department.

The snow is pretty much melted now, so I'm going to go back to my apartment and cook up some wild, imaginative dinner involving all the vegetables I have in my fridge and then practice my accordion. I soooo need a guitar. I long for something I'm actually decent at. It's painful to not be good at anything you do every day either due to novelty or some language barrier.

Tomorrow's Thursday! Almost done with the week!