Radioactive Rain Day

Dear young JTT,
You don't have the Korean teens heart like you used to have mine.

Once again while beginning this blog, I feel I have nothing to say that will hold your interest. Plus, right now I have an 8 year old boy reading over my shoulder and crunching these shrimp flavored chips like there's no tomorrow, so this blog entry may not be the best, but here it goes regardless.

Tuesday was most definitely the most exciting day of the week last week. On Sunday and Monday the Korean newspapers were reporting that come Tuesday, the shift in winds could bring radioactive rain from Japan. I'm not really sure of the science, but for some reason, to me, it seemed silly. And from what I heard, even if the rain was radioactive, it wouldn't bring enough radiation to do any harm. And since I have always been one to stare very closely at my food being microwaved, this situation didn't instill fear in me like it did to some of the Korean mothers. Apparently, a school district in Seoul had so many mother's complaining that they decided to cancel school due to this "radioactive" rain.

Can't you just hear it? little boy runs into his older sister's room and says, "Noona (which means older sister in Korean (well, it only means older sister if the younger brother says it..oh the Korean language), the school called, we have a radioactive rain day!" Noona: "YES! Let's go to the neighbors and start a radioactive rain fight!"

But turns out, all the worry was for nothing. There were no levels of radiation in the rain. For being a country that has been threatened for the past however many years with nuclear warfare, you'd think they wouldn't be so jumpy.

I didn't take this picture, but they did show this picture of some people in Seoul on the news...I took the bus to work this day.


As for the classes this past week, nothing too interesting happened...except when two of my kid students threw unopened cans of cola out the 4th floor window of our classroom (I wasn't in there at the time)...and I'm pretty sure the director gave it to them since they spent half the class in her office.

On Wednesday we finished up watching "Wild America" in my middle school classes. I was so excited to show them this movie, I used to rent this movie every chance I got...the main reason? Jonathan Taylor Thomas. So, you can imagine my disappointment when I asked in an excited tone, "So, what did you think of the movie!?" Their response: "We hated. So boring." My thoughts, "Well, maybe if we would have slapped some swoopy hair and skinny jeans on the boys in the movie, you would think differently?"

Instead, this is what I hear from the same group of students the next day when we were talking about the word, "bid." I was asking them to bid on something they wanted. One girl says, "I bid 20 dollars on that pencil." Next girl says, "I bid 10,000 dollars on Justin Bieber's hair." Boy sitting next to her, "NO NO, I bid 1,000,0000 dollars on Justin Bieber's hair!" Come on, JTT all the way.

(Although you can't tell, I just wrote like 6 more paragraphs and when I went to publish this post, it was all erased! You can imagine my frustration at this moment, so these next few paragraphs might be a little shorter and written with a tinge of bitterness...I'll show you blogspot.com!)

On Friday, the staff at the my academy went out to lunch. We went to this pork place that was pretty good. Nothing was too abnormal until they brought out more meat and as I was eating it, one of the teachers says, "Oh, you like pig's feet?" I don't think I've ever had pig's feet, so I guess that's another one to add the list of firsts. And although no one else could see it, after I ate it, I thought I did see the shape of a little piggy hoof.

Saturday I needed to make a trip to Seoul. I needed to go to a travel agency where the people spoke English and the company was Chinese Embassy approved. That's right, yours truly will be going to China this coming October, that is if they let me in. So, Elizabeth and I decided to make this a relaxing day in Seoul, well as relaxing as Seoul can be. We ate at a Mexican restaurant, went to an English bookstore, shopped, went to Seoul tower and simply enjoyed not being so "foreign."

For the most part it was a very nice day. I'll tell you what wasn't nice though, the bus ride up there. I don't think I've ever felt so uncomfortably warm in my life. It must be the in between stage of Winter and Spring, but the temperature in the bus was absurdly warm and moist. Somehow, the Koreans around us slept through it all while Elizabeth and I had a minor breakdown and was contemplating how to communicate to the bus driver to turn off the heat. We probably wouldn't need to communicate..he could either smell us or see the sweat stains. It felt like I was breathing while I had my face in someone else's mouth. If I don't get sick this week, it will be a true miracle.

Oh and one more thing. Last week, or maybe it was the week before, it was made official! Amy Wegmeyer is coming to Korea on October 5! She will be going to China too...well, that is if she can stand the interrogation as well. So, I'm so so so so so excited for Amy to come..and see, if Amy can do it, so can you! :)