Respectfully Yours

So, before we got to Korea, I didn't google "Korean culture and traditions" or anything. For some strange reason, I wasn't the least bit interested even before I got here as to what this place was about. I did have about a thousand or so hits on google for my search "koreans eat dogs" though. Somehow, this was the beginning and end to my interest in Korea and their culture. Now, I am not trying to say that all their culture and traditions are bobo; I am just saying that upon learning about their taste for dog, I closed some all of the doors that led to my giving a shit about them. Ok, moving on. Despite the fact that I did not attempt to learn about Koreans, this was inevitable upon arriving here. I learned a lot as I worked in the school. I learned to take my super cute shoes off and trade them in for a pair of communal, hideous, 2 sizes too big, blue or red slippers (thanks for the choice, guys...really, really, thoughtful) which more times than I can count, caused me to trip and on a daily basis and made me wear a face of disgust. Why? Why do they make you wear these pathetic shoes that ruin your day? One reason, respect. Another reason, they don't want to bring the outside grossness into their house. Okay, I can deal with these...but only because I have to. My thoughts on this??? Hmm, let's see. First of all, why do I have to respect you and take off my shoes when clearly you don't respect the fact that I want to wear my own shoes and not share with a bunch of people who I don't even know if they took a bath today!! To combat feet fungus, I wore socks....every single day...no matter what I was wearing, socks came with me in my purse to school, so that I could put them on to go with my stylish slippers. After a while, who cares what your wearing because you are about to ruin that cute dress with a freaking pair of socks and bright blue slippers!! Infuriated...every single day about this which leads me to my second thought about this. Sometimes, I chose to only sport my socks around and not wear the slippers. Why not, right? The floor is clean because nobody is allowed to walk around in there with shoes on, including the guy working on the toliet or fixing the air conditioner or bringing a new supply of water (since you can't drink the water here thanks to some parasite...yippiee!) Anyway, all these poor fools are walking around with no shoes on! It just looks so strange and is just gross to me. So, back to the clean floor...I just wear my socks since this has clearly got to be cleaner than any floor ever. Wrong!!! Not true at all. I get home the first day of wearing my socks at school, and it looks like I've been slipping and sliding all over the dirtiest Piggly Wiggly in the south for 100 hours! WTF? Can someone please explain the damn logic behind this? Like most everything else here, there is no freaking logic. It is pointless.

Koreans also have this hierarchy system when it comes to walking on a sidewalk or...anywhere for that matter. It is respectful and expected for you to move out of the path of anyone that is older than you. So, if a person that's older than you is walking toward you on the sidewalk, then you move over and let them pass. It doesn't sound that bad, right? Well, its not, until one of them purposefully steps into your pathway just to make you move out of their way and show their superiority. This is definitely up there on my list of "I hate all these things about this place". While running with the dogs the other day, this older-than-me man was walking towards me and this older-than-him couple was walking in front of me, going the same direction I was. So, ra-tard, moves out of the way for the couple in front of me and quickly steps right back in my path. I'm thinking, "little buddy, this aint tha day"...haha! Now, I have stayed in the same place as I have been running the entire time. He was on the other side of the sidewalk before, but moved across the sidewalk just to walk in my path. So, what had happened was...he got smashed into. I mean, really dude, really?!?!? I was just trying to get a little jog on with my dogs and forget that I am living in this freaking place, which is impossible, by the way, because I have to launch myself over piles of trash, rotten food, and puddles of phlegm as I run...but hey, that's not so bad, huh?! Anyway, Ra-tard got what he deserved in my opinion. And before you go getting your feathers ruffled, it wasn't like he was some wrinkled old man, hunched over with brittle bones and a crooked back, just barely making his way down the sidewalk or anything! He wasn't that old. Gah. The only thing that would have made it better is if my dog would've nipped his ankle. *evil laugh*

Ok well, I've done enough bashing for one blog entry I guess. The point is, there is no point to most of this and that respecting others here is a one-way street. Give respect and get....to smell and see the gutter that is this country.  

nothing is easy...dogs and kimchi

So, like I knew it would be...its proven extremely hard (impossible) to find someone to groom Zeus and Fritz here. And this has nothing to do with the fact that I was googling "koreans eat dogs" 6 months before we came here! This is a real problem!...aside from my fear that instead of grooming them, they will roast them for dinner to eat along with their rotten vegetables that they bury under the ground for a few weeks, then dig up and call it kimchi (or maybe they used their high-tech kimchi fridge to rot their veggies). Either way, slimy, fermented cabbage, with a little dog on the side. Gross. Anyway! There are no groomers on base, and even when I asked the vet to recommend a Korean groomer off base, they said "Ummm, we can't do that." Ha! It wasn't like I needed much of a reason not to trust Korean dog groomers, but that was all it took. Thankfully, Luke is like one of those handy pocket knives that you get that has all kinds of little helpful devices that fold out from all sides of it; and it turns out, he has some serious dog grooming skills. And I mean that in like a "roaring, beat your chest, scratch your balls, burp really loud" manly kind of way. His dog grooming skills are very manly. Now, ladies...if you haven't found a guy that will groom your dog, cook you dinner, and rub your back while watching the latest Reese Witherspoon flick, you are clearly living your life the wrong way.
And for the record, I was picky about dog groomers in America too! Gahhhh. I know what you're thinking and I know you are judging me for using the words their and they. But the fact is, I am not a Korean and they are Koreans. There is a difference. And seriously, some of them eat dogs. So there.

Also, just in case you wondered what two very bored miniature schnauzers look like...

They drag all their toys out daily...and even their winter sweaters some days. Life is hard for all of us over here in kimchi country.

Snot, poop, and other fun things....

So, a lot of people back home always ask me how I am liking teaching English in Korea. I thought I would give you guys an example of a day in my life at school that happened recently.

****These are just cute pictures that I took in class. This blog is not about any one of them. There are many more students than this is my class.  These are, however, a few of my favorites!****

One random Tuesday or something a couple of weeks ago, some of my children tried to put me in the grave. Maybe not physically, but mentally for sure.

Class had started we were all in the gym, which is a big room where we have "song and dance time", when some of my students randomly started coming up to me and saying something in Korean. So, being that I had no clue what they were saying and they had no clue how to tell me in English what they were saying, we continued with our songs. We went back to the classroom and started learning all about the letter "D", all the while the students are still saying this thing in Korean and I am telling them "I do not speak Korean!!" I do make several attempts to figure out what they are saying, but geezzz, I didn't know. I asked them, "Do you need to go to the bathroom?" "Do you want water?" They stared back blankly at my face. These sweet little angels can make a grown up feel like the dumbest idiot on the face of the earth with their looks they give you. This time was no different; they were looking at me like I was an alien that just walked into their world. As I tried to continue the lesson, the students at this point, are damn-near chanting this phrase that sounded like "Shinanboyahya". So my classroom had gradually turned into what I thought was perhaps a cultish chant party for 4 year olds, instead of learning that "dog" started with "d". So, the kids are all staring at me with these eyes that demand attention and chanting "Shinanboyahya....Shinanboyahya....Shinanboyahya". It began to sound more like "Shinanboyahhhhhhyaaaaaaaaaaaaaa". All the while, I'm still trying to get them to repeat the word "dog" and "donkey".  One little girl, I will call her Miss Priss, is standing up in her chair, which is really not abnormal for her. She does what she wants. She was looking at me, but then I noticed she had her chin propped up on her little hand, with her elbow leaning on the desk, as she stood in her chair. Her eyes were gazed toward the ceiling with a look of blissful release and that's when it hit me. So I rushed over to her, grabbed her up and ran her to the bathroom. Another Korean teacher took her to help her go to the bathroom, but like I expected, she had already gone...in her pants. Two of the other little girls quickly ran to the bathroom once they figured out that it was okay. So she comes back, all smiles, ready to have story time with all the other kids on the carpet in the classroom, with a stylish new pair of pajama pants on. Rounding these kids up for story time is real, real fun. After we were all on the carpet, another little girl, Miss Sneaky, sat on one side of me, sneezed directly at my face, wiped the snot coming out of her nose, and then grabbed my hand. On the other side of me is the little boy that makes my life a living hell (seriously, do not underestimate a 4 year old). He began, like always, sticking two fingers up his nose and pulling out whatever he could find, as far up as he could find it. And then of course, he proceeds to eat everything he pulled out of his nose. Now, this kid is serious about his nose-picking and clearly enjoys the taste of what comes out because it doesn't matter to him whether he pulls something really snotty out or not, he is going to lick every single one of his fingers for any remnants that may be left on them from his nose. So, on this day, he happened to be having an awesome day for himself and his never-ending quest for snot because he pulled out the most slimy, glistening, 2 inch, stringy piece of snot that you can imagine. The look on his face when he looked at his finger was like he had just found the golden ticket to the Willy Wonka factory. He smiled in such a way that you would have thought nothing else could ever make him happier. Now, all of the other kids and myself are staring at him in horror (ok, maybe I was in horror, they were just curious) to see what he was going to do with it. Well, we wouldn't have to wonder long because he lapped it up like a thirsty dog and licked his lips clean, but only after licking all his other fingers, of course. So, as I am trying to swallow my own gags, I put my hands over my mouth and said "OH------MY-------GOD, the students quickly did the same thing as me and started giggling about it. Not one minute after this, Miss Sneaky said, "Shinanboyaaahaaaaa", so of course I took her to the bathroom. I came back thinking I would read the story, but was met immediately with  Miss Priss saying again, "Shinanboyaahaaaa". I leave the other kids in the classroom, so that I can help Miss Priss go to the bathroom. I thought she must not have finished her potty in her pants. So I plopped her up on the potty and waited for her to go pee. Well, it never happened. But what did happen was her sweet, cute, adorable little face turned red and she started grunting and doing some serious work on the potty. By this time, I am starting to feel a little defeated...and really, really dirty. See, being that we don't have children yet, I don't actually come face to face with this type of thing very often. Koreans don't keep an abundance of toilet paper in the bathroom, so I quickly snap out of my shock and realize this is something I will be needing very soon. I go grab the paper, come back and ask her if she is finished. She says, "dayyyyyy" which means yes in Korean so I hand her some tissue paper and she looks at it like she has never seen such in her life. I tell her what to do with it and she hands it back to me and says something very adamently in Korean. Realizing she would not be wiping herself, I peered over her to see what I was up against. Are you serious?! This is sooo not what I signed up for!!!! I haven't even had the pleasure of wiping my own child's dirty little ass yet! Soooo, I do it, of course I do it! I am an adult and I can do whatever my job requires of me! Haha...I'm chanting this to myself at this point...or either I am telling myself what my mother always told me in bad situations..."this too shall pass". So, as I am kneeling on the ground...in a bathroom (and if you know me and my slightly germophobic tendencies, you know the state of mind I must be in). I mean, it can only go up from here, right?! I am about to pull Miss Priss's pants up and someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn around and I am now face-to-face with a four year old's little uncircumsized weiner, just flapping at my face. He is staring at me and says "Shinanboyaaahhaaaa". I almost knock Miss Priss over trying to get away from the little guy and his little buddy that's hanging in my face, staring at my nose... because it is, for some reason, bringing up my horrific fear of parasitic worms. I told him "OMG just goooo to the bathroom, you don't have to ask me...OR show me!!!!!!"

Really, I mean really? Thank God class was almost over. I needed a glass of wine or ten, some deep meditation, and a long shower with a lot of soap.

This post should tell you two things:

1. I do not like to teach tiny children that cannot understand me, that pick their noses with an odd passion, and that cannot wipe their own ass.

2. I am in no way, shape, or form, a teacher at heart.

Okay 3...I am deathly afraid of worms.