Photos of the Day--I Still Love Old People

These are some photos from a day off of school (we get our school's birthday off, it's great!). One of the science teachers at my school likes to practice his English with me after lunch, and he invited me to come along with him and his wife to his hometown, a small village outside of an only slightly larger town called Sancheong. We went to his mother's house, and the four of us and his "village uncle" all went out to the mountains to pick some wild herbs. And then, naturally (because it's the Korean way), we picnicked on pork, rice, kimchi and wild herbs.

At the end of the day, upon returning to the science teacher's house completely drained from a day of trying to communicate with somebody who hardly speaks my language, I was re-energized immediately when I walked into the house and saw three old women sitting around piles of wild herbs on the floor. We all sat down with them and snacked on fresh strawberries and pajeon (Korean style pancakes, usually with green onion and octopus--delicious!).

My non-verbal exchanges with these women absolutely made my day and reminded me of why I spent six years studying gerontology!

Photos of the Day

These photos are from a trip to Beomeosa Temple in Busan back in the beginning of April, right when the cherry blossoms were starting to come out. This is one of the more famous urban temples here and sits above the city on the slopes of a mountain side.

The Joys of Working in an All Boys Middle School 4

During one of my classes this morning, I witnessed the following in a student sitting in the front row (all while my co-teacher and I were teaching, mind you):

He borrowed a razor/paper cutter from the student behind him (all the students here have them in their little pencil cases, though I'm not quite sure why).

Then, he took out those tiny little post-it note strips used to mark pages in books from the pencil case of the student sitting next to him, who conveniently had his back turned to him and therefore had no clue what was going on.

Student #1 then started using the razor on the post-it note strips and sliced about two-thirds off the end. He returned the razor and the little post-it note strips (or, the half-inch that was left of them) to their respective owners.

He started poking the owner of the post-it note strips in the back. When he was ignored, he tried to give him the papers he had cut off, but he was still ignored. So then he turned to the kid behind him and started tossing, one by one, the little excess strips of paper on his desk. The student behind him annoyingly brushed off the papers, one by one, obviously irritated. Then student #1 decided to toss all of the remaining papers on the desk at once.

Ahhhh, it's the little things in life that continue to be the most amusing.