A continuation of the permutations of English words in the hands of my students: frying pan  flying pen. Not that I should judge. Apparently when I say “animal” in Korean it sounds like “sh*t water,” which doesn’t even lend itself to any fun imagery (ugh, actually).

Today was my welcoming party—dinner with the eight real English teachers at Gumi HS. When we got to the place we were supposed to eat, the two teachers who were driving me started to panic. They kept driving up and down the same road—an activity not for the faint of heart, involving not a few five-point turns across three busy lanes of traffic. Anyway, it turns out that the restaurant they wanted to take me to had completely disappeared, which caused Mrs. Oh to become EXTREMELY embarrassed to the point that I thought she might continue to drive back and forth past the building where the old restaurant used to be until a new one sprung up in its place. Fortunately for Mrs. Oh’s sanity, though, Mrs. Lee spotted a restaurant that served the exact same dish about half a block away. (Most Korean restaurants are NOT like American restaurants, involving lengthy ruminations over whether it would be better to get the harvest salad with soup or really go all out for the pasta primavera. Rather, you are seated, and then they bring you whatever food that restaurant happens to serve. This system is actually pretty convenient for the non-English speaker, better than those situations in which a long, completely incomprehensible menu is handed over and ordering becomes a leap into the void.) So, what was this dish? Roughly translated it’s called “pork belly with three layers of fat.” Ohgod. As soon as we sat down the table warned me that while Koreans love this dish, Americans usually hate it. Haha, I have no doubt. I was also told that the dish was “healthy, because it gives you energy.” Actually, despite the somewhat nauseating choice of meat (which is actually tolerable if you let it char beyond recognition), the dinner was pretty great. The teachers spent most of the time telling me all of the gossip about everyone else at school—for instance, about the teacher who is already seven months pregnant even though she was married in May and has been wearing really baggy clothing for the past two months so that her students won’t be able to tell. They also told me that some of the students had been a little freaked out by my description of my family—one even wondered if it was OK to talk about divorce in public. (And I didn’t even go into adoption, which is also non-standard in Korea). I also FINALLY straightened out everyone’s names. I had been so confused about who Mr. Kim was; it wasn’t until I had them all in one place that I figured out that three of the five male English teachers are Mr. Kims.

This afternoon Fresa took Robin and me to Samsung-Won orphanage. (At Robin’s middle school I met Mrs. Han, who introduced herself as follows, “Hello, I’m Mrs. Han. I’m single.” This is not the first time a woman has introduced herself this way. When I asked Fresa if it was common for women to reach their forties without marrying, she looked absolutely horrified at even the idea.) Anyway, both Robin and I have been asked to do some one-on-one tutoring. My charges are two, you got it, high school boys. I’m really, really happy that I’m going to be volunteering there. I dunno. I’ve only spent about an hour there total, but the women who work there are very warm and the kids are sweet and fun but also seem very...attentive to each other. We’ll see.

Wow, I was really wined and dined today. For lunch the English-Speaking Teachers Club took me out to lunch. I’m supposed to lead a discussion for them every Monday and help them with dialogues in their textbook every Wednesday, but this was just a get-to-know-you over bi bim bap kind of thing. They each went around the table and told me their names (Sunny, James, Jasmine, Julia—as in Roberts, Candy, River and Jane....I want a Korean name...) as well as their ages and hobbies and a variety of other interesting tidbits. I honestly felt like I was on a dating show, with all the eligible bachelors and bachelorettes trying to woo me. I particularly liked Sunny, the school nurse, who looks about 25 but turns out to be 37 with two kids. Anyway, she kept saying to come visit her all the time, so maybe I’ll start developing some mysterious recurring illness.

Today I ALSO met the English Club, a group of students who are supposedly desperate to speak tons and tons of English. It was the first time that I had to think up fifty-minutes of activities on the fly—I thought they were a club and would do their own thing and I would just sort of oversee, but when I got there they were all seated at their desks waiting for me to show up and tell them what to do. Whoa. To start things off I had them interview each other and then introduce their partner to me. I really think, though, that some of the students are AFRAID to speak English. When I force them to get up to speak they look so terrified, and they can only sort of quaveringly whisper that their friend went to Seoul over summer break and has two sisters. I can’t tell if this is just how they act whenever they’re required speak English or if I, personally, frighten them.

The other night I had a Korean pop-music info session with Yong Ju. His favorite song of the moment is by the popular band “The Cross.” The story goes something like this: There was once this prince who loved Snow White. But then the evil witch turns him into a dwarf so he goes into the mountains to live with sixth other dwarves. When Snow White shows up, she doesn’t even look the prince in the eye, which is too bad because if she did she would see the love burning in his heart. When Snow White gets knocked out by the poison apple a DIFFERENT prince comes and kisses her, but he’s the wrong prince so she doesn’t wake up. The End. “A very, very sad song” said Yong Ju, who became so overwhelmed at the modulation during the bridge that he had to cover his face with a pillow. Actually, I have to agree, it’s a pretty good song. It even has the “I love you I love you” repeats during the chorus that seem to be a K-pop necessity.

Every time I try to move this stuff from my laptop to my computer at school I have to lug my hard drive out of the cubby in my desk and onto the floor so I can access the USB port. I try to do this surreptitiously, but there is nothing discreet about somebody doubled over in her seat dragging a heavy piece of hardware across a hard surface. I just know one of these days I’m going to look up, all sweaty from the exertion, to see my VP standing over me, and then I will have to just lay down and die. I might have to cut this out.