Yesterday I spent the day with many of the teachers at my school on a retreat of sorts. We chartered a bus for the day and took off from Hongsan around 9 am for the highest mountain in western Korea. I forget its name now, but it was only 790 meters tall…not very high at all compared to what I am used to, but we did climb above the tree line and at this point, I’ll take what I can get! We did start close to sea level, so it was a good enough climb. In fact, it was a lot tougher than I anticipated and I was sad to discover how hopelessly out of shape I am. Guess it all comes with being a sedentary creature. I was the second one to reach the top (I am very proud of this fact!) and many of us celebrated reaching the summit with a beer. We had a picnic of kimbap, but it had ham and crab, so I ate duk and mandarin oranges right now. Mandarin oranges are a major product of Jeju and are currently in season—I must eat at least five per day. I am loving this whole concept of seasonal fruits, but I am sure I will be much less enthralled once winter hits and there are no more to be found. Anyway, perhaps the highlight of the day for me was when the vice principal offered me a little cup of beer and then communicated, via gestures, that I should drink as much as I wanted because they could carry me down. Yeah, right! First of all, I don’t think they had enough booze there to get me in that condition, and I wouldn’t do that even if they did. Also, the descent was really steep. It was just a ridiculous idea. This dude is really a hardcore drinker, and you’d never think it from his appearance. He is possibly the nerdiest-looking man of all time—middle-aged, awkward, and talks to himself on a consistent basis. His love for boozin’ is most unexpected, but at least he’s fun to watch!
After the mountain, we went to a park that also had a gallery where some watercolors were on display. They were painted by an artist who cannot use his hands and uses his mouth and feet to hold the brush instead. Even if I hadn’t known that, I would have thought these paintings were incredible. Almost all of them featured trees and the outdoors, a subject I think is sometimes overused but found beautiful in his works. He used a lot of bright color in a lot of them and was really masterful in creating texture in only a few strokes. It was really neat. I talked about it a bit with my co-teacher and found that he is actually an artist of sorts himself. I knew he majored in art education in school, but I never thought he painted on his own. He was telling me about his studio space and how he likes summer best because the awful weather allows him to stay inside and paint. He said he’s not a real artist because he cannot convey his feelings on paper yet, but he seems pretty serious to me!
We went out to a seafood dinner after that. I cannot believe how much seafood they had this week—first Wednesday night, and now this. And nothing for me! This time I got pam (chestnuts), raw goguma (sweet potato), seaweed soup (not a big fan) and finally some eggs and vegetables and rice. Meanwhile, they had literally pounds of seafood. I have no idea how they ate it all. It was actually kind of disgusting how much they all put away. And meanwhile, we were taking in the usual alcohol. The men had brought this special huge bottle of some sort of liquor that was advertised as containing 50-60% alcohol and was absolutely foul. Definitely warmed me up, but I would not touch it again! Over the course of dinner, I found out that Choi Hyun Moon is leaving in January to go to another school, as well as the principal and possibly Kyoung Hee Sam. I am really sad to hear about all of this. Basically, all my allies and friends are leaving me! And based on my previous experience with Choi Hyun Moon’s absence, I can only guess that next semester’s going to be a difficult one and I will never know what’s going on. I suppose I can look at it as a SURPRISE semester!
Today I spent around home. I wanted to sleep in because I have been so tired lately, but that is sooooo not possible at my house. Everyone was up today around 6:30 and causing a ruckus. It is seriously redick here sometimes…I usually have trouble falling asleep at night because I am such a night person anyway and there is usually some sort of activity going on—the TV, kids running around, dish washing, etc. And then there are the random early early morning (sometimes before 5 am!) phone calls and other rustlings in the house. There’s no dependable pattern, either. Sometimes I’m the first up at 7 am, and sometimes I am awakened at 3:55 am because they are doing some sort of cleaning in the other room. It is so odd. It’s not really a problem, but I definitely feel more tired than I should. And I thought it was hard to sleep at home in Montana! At least I was relatively far away from the source of the noise and I could depend on it starting by 7 am at the earliest! At least I can sleep in when I am away.
I am not really looking forward to this week of lessons. I feel rundown and tired and on the verge of a cold. I am not entirely prepared for any of them and don’t feel any motivation to lesson plan right now. I just spent 2-3 hours this afternoon writing up one lesson plan, but I think now it is worthless and I am going to have to start again. Life is not going well at all. Well, if I don’t have my health or my sanity, at least I have more than enough food in my belly!