The Been Briefing

every day i notice new things.
~ i get really excited when i see a foreigner. i think, "oh goodie! somebody who doesn't quite fit the picture here either!" and i can tell he/she is thinking the same thing as we pass ... we usually share a knowing smile full of understanding and a very english "hello" or "hey." :)

~ i never see anyone exercising. i wonder if i'm the only one. and i wouldn't feel so weird if they all didn't stare. haha.

~ every time i sit down to eat dinner with the other teachers, they introduce a new food with "it's very good for health (except that 'health' comes out as 'helsss'). so far i've eaten about 4 different types of rice ... each a different color. apparently they eat it breakfast, lunch, and dinner. amazed they don't ever get sick of it. and the other day i ate some kind of brown root. the teachers assured me it was very good for helsss. i said, "yeah, it tastes healthy." they started howling at the expression on my face.

~ i love my 4th class. a few kids trickle in and out, but se hwan and phil have been regular. they are both christians and in 5th grade and are good friends. i have thoroughly enjoyed teaching them. they have the sweetest spirits ever, are diligent, involved.... i tease them a lot. yesterday i gave them a vocabulary quiz and they moaned and groaned. "ooooohhhh, too hard, teacher!" haha. am reminded of when i was in that position.

~ feeling a little cut off from america apart from reading the news online. when mr. so (actually, now he wants the american teachers to call him wuan jang nim which means "principal") took lauren and me to a chinese restaurant in suwon this past weekend we were talking about american politics and i found out that rehnquist had passed away several days previously. ...... don't want to lose the world picture while i'm here in korea.

~ the way trash is handled here is different. haven't figured out how it works. they recycle a WHOLE lot more, which i think is awesome... but it's because it's such a small country and they can't afford to pitch as much as we do in america. trash bags cost a lot of money, and i have to buy them here in suji... so each county or town must have it's own trash pickup system. i think 10 bags cost me 9000 won (~$9), and they were for the regular trash. food trash bags are a different color. so i have been trying to figure out ingenious ways to save money and cut down on what i discard. it's a good habit, i think.

~ my refrigerator is weird. it cut off randomly the other day, so the big dilemma was then 'hmm, to keep the chicken and milk or not to keep them?' now i'm finding my nectarines with a white frost on them... they were frozen. LOL. the temperature regulation is a little off, perhaps?!