Teacher Planning Period

I am sitting in my mandatory teacher-planning period. We are in the 'special subject teacher room.' From what I can tell, teachers are watching videos, shopping online and, in my case, blogging.

I just finished my first day of teaching. Victorious! The classes went well, the students were very interested, and I didn't do anything offensive or unforgivable. It was, in fact, very gratifying to see the students singing my "can-do kids" song. My biggest concern is the amount of energy I gave them. They seemed to suck it right out of me like a sponge and spill it all over the halls and cafeteria. I'm not sure if I can sustain this everyday for a week.

I'm banking on the fact that third graders aren't going to take as much energy. They are rumored to be much calmer, more cooperative and lower maintenence even though they are younger. Plus, they're cute as hell. I'm going to take a picture of all the little asian kids so you guys can see how much cuter this race is when they're small. (Just kidding...I'm allowed to say this kind of thing because I'm two races)

My immune system is currently completely overwhelmed. I've developd a stye in my eye, a ridiculous sore throat and today I've been fatigued. I may be getting the swine flu (in which case I would be relieved of my teaching duties for a few blissful days). But, more likely, my immune system is just bruised by less-than-stringent health codes for street food, my general lack of grace (running into things), and Soju.

Cultural oddity #1:
Yesterday, I presented a powerpoint for my first lesson to introduce myself. The picture on the first slide was something I thought was a nice, neutral picture of me. I had my hair up in a bun and was wearing a black tanktop. Mi-Jung called me over to her desk and said, "I'm going to be frank. You are showing too much of your body in this picture." I felt like she was calling me a red-light district whore. I was embarassed, but I wasn't sure why. On my way home, I paid close attention to the women walking around Seoul. None of them had on spaghetti straps and I counted only two who had 'sleeveless' shirts on. When I got back to my apartment, I sorted through my wardrobe and discovered that half of my clothes consisted of some degree of sleeveless shirt, dress or sweater. I have nothing to wear in Seoul.

Other facts of relevence:

The picture of my dad at the beach without a shirt on was allowed to stay in the power point, although I changed it of my own accord later just to be fair.

Korean women often wear high high heels just to leave the house, and very short skirts.