One week down..............___________to go

Welp, I finally feel normal. As the jet leg subsided over the past week, I still felt tired and exhausted, as I was doing a little bit of everything to get settled in, I finally had a weekend to just rest. This included the joy of sleeping in and cleaning the apartment as I listened to some tunes. Just what I had needed, as the week had brought a certain amount of chaos itself.

Example 1 - After shadowing the outgoing teacher for a few days, I have finally begun to teach. I am teaching 2 kindergarten classes and a bunch of elementary and middle school classes. The kindergarten classes get breaks to go to the bathroom every class, which is great as it kills time and also gives me a break from the constant call of "Kevin teacher.........aauauuauuauuaa". This is usually accompanied by a pointing pencil to the work they should be doing, with a confused look on their faces. During one bathroom break I was lining the kids up, a process that can take a few minutes with Johnny budging and Sally hitting, when I made eye contact with little Betty. She had the biggest puppy dog look with clenched legs. She had to go to the bathroom, fair enough. Not a really a big deal, we were lining up to go anyway. So my attention left her as I went to control a few of the boys in the group. It had appeared that I had downplayed the urgency with which precious little Betty was attempting to portray. As I glanced back over to her, I noticed a small puddle that seemed to be growing from the leak in the rotting roof. But that didn't make sense, the roof isn't rotting, it's actually in great condi.........................it was precious little Betty, who's look of urgency had turned to what I think may have been a little self pity as the puddle had grown, and all traces of its origin led to her! And there was nothing that I was prepared to do about this. I knew at that moment that I was going to play "dumb westerner" and get the school secretary's over to deal with this. I wanted no part in it, not only that, I just simply and honestly do not know what to do with a young child who wet her pants. That will happened later in life............I hope

That event really steals the thunder of anything else that I did, which brought me closer to exhaustion. The most common difficulty is communicating, which can be particularity frustrating at restaurants, where there are certain things I want to be sure to avoid. I'm picky, I'll admit that, but when you see a tank of squid, bottom feeding fish and an array of other ugly things at some of the local restaurants, I have trouble mentally overcoming these obstacles in order to eat some Korean dishes. Which often leads to me to the street vendors which are cheap and good, so I don't complain.

Anyway, this week should be full of more adventures. I'm off to Osaka, Japan on Friday and return Saturday. I'll be spending the night at the Capsule Hotel (the name really says it all), which should be quite an experience. I'll let you know all about it when I get back, I'm looking forward to it.

I love hearing from you all, whether it be your comments...........welp, some of them............or emails. Look forward to hearing more

Kev