Friday #(-37)

I just came within 3 points of acing Africa. My latest online addiction/time-waster: a geography quiz that requires you to identify places on a map. Some I'm utter rubbish at (provinces of Germany or Afghanistan, for instance), others (states/capitals of US or Canada) such gimmes as to be pointless more than once, but I've been practicing Africa all week, and thought tonight might be the night I get a perfect score. Which Republic of Congo is Democratic, and discerning Liberia/Ivory Coast/Sierra Leone still elude me, though. Reason to keep playing!

I'm having a night in. I've been a hermit all week, briefly considering inviting people to accompany me, but always dismissing the idea. Trying to decide if this is a phase, a sign, forced acclimation, or really nothing new at all. Maybe exhaustion. Maybe I feel like talking to someone right now. When you're on an odyssey, everything's a signpost. Some are irrelevant, but you don't know which ones.

We had a "workshop" for Dongbu's middle school teachers today. I love the Korean definition of workshop--an hour presentation, then a great big field trip. The presenter was one from orientation (half-relieved, half-dismayed it wasn't Nick)--I thought this guy was brilliant in August, but today the emperor was wearing cellophane. An avalanche of PowerPoints, techno tricks, and lesson seeds, all given in ADD order, is no longer very useful to me. I've got more ideas than I can keep track of; what I need now is guidance on taking one seed and cultivating it until it blooms into something that's not ugly and smelly. But this presenter gets a lot of mileage out of extroversion and charisma, and someone who comes by things naturally is not always the best choice to show another how it's done. Nor does it help that my colleagues at Hwigyeong view games, etc as a waste of time. While English Variety Show may in fact be engaging and educational, and probably just what the students need, my co-teachers ain't buyin' it.

So after an hour's edification, we piled onto a bus and drove an hour and a half into the countryside. Looking out the window suited me immensely, and I did so happily until they fogged up. Is it something inherent in Korean buses, or am I just not on enough American ones to realize? They took us to lunch at a traditional Korean place where they boil up beef soup at your table (bibimbap, sans egg, for me)--it must be some sort of conditioning thing because all the waygooks get fidgety after sitting on the floor for a few minutes--then to the English Village in Gapyeong, where I won't be going with the EEP kids this winter break (they're taking them to Jeju Island instead, and Terrie's the only teacher they're willing to spring for). Picture a mountain resort, or boarding school, or cult compound. With 18 different experience classrooms (store, airport, art, board games, and on and on), hotel for the kids (in America, we call them "dorms"), and barracks for the teachers, groups of 120 students can come hole up in the hills for 5 days to get a total immersion experience. There are expensive A/V setups, ovens in the kitchen (eliciting much envied murmuring from our group), nature trails out back...all kinds of evidence explaining why our schools can't stock chalk. If I were going to do a second year in Korea, this place would definitely merit serious consideration. What would it be like if I had a focused curriculum, engaging props, and grass & trees to walk with every night? Alluring enough to justify 90 minutes each way for every E-Mart run or museum visit? Another Deer Hill? Would I have boxes of the same lesson plan, typed over and over on ream after ream of paper? A moot point, 'cause come August, I'm headed home as fast as wings and wheels will carry me.

Our final stop today was Nami Island, or, as they style it, The Republic of Naminara. Manmade and site of soap opera filming, two things Koreans find irresistable. I've been finding them pretty appealing myself. This one is island enough to require a short ferry ride, after which I spent most of our allotted hour walking the perimeter. Contrived, certainly, but comfortable and enjoyable nonetheless. I shared the hard-packed path with bicycles, surreys, and other strollers, passing empty steel boat rental docks, build-by-number bungalows, random maintenance buildings (with at least one rooster on premises), and lots of foliage, albeit brown & dormant. The weather was ideal, sunny and seasonably brisk but without bite. Maybe it's the intense communality of Seoul, but hiring a bungalow and basking on the front porch in view of mountains and lake while legions of holidaymakers parade past the back didn't sound half bad. Placards outside listed the cost (anywhere from $70 for a weekday shack to $250/night for an 8-person weekend), and other features, including "Stationaries": bedding, toothpastes, and towels. It'd be charming. It was charming. A lovely day at work.