Be polite and eat all your rice

After a rough start to the week, I have begun to settle into things. Here is a quick few pictures of the classrooms I teach in.

This is just in the 'reading corner"  and is never really used. Every classroom comes equipped with one. Super cool!

classroom 1

the smaller classroom

My school boarders on a forest. When the building ends, the forest starts. Its interesting coming from South Africa - the school doesn't ever seem to be locked and isn't fenced in. I come from a high school with security guards and electric fencing.

My teachers are constantly worried that I haven't eaten. When I arrive at school in the mornings, my co-teacher hands me a cup of coffee and asks if I have had breakfast. On the off chance that I haven't, she leaps up from her desk and tries to find me something to eat.  She is such an angel and I feel like i am always inconveniencing her. Her and all the other female teachers are concerned that I do not eat enough at lunch. Its a difficult catch 22.  I am starting to get used to the raging fire of spice that is Korean food and actually finding a way to enjoy most of it. However, I just cannot eat as much as Korean women do. I had always had a very naive view on Asian women's appetites, assuming that because they are so thin, they must eat nothing but half a bowl of rice each day. Boy, was I wrong. In reality, they eat way way more than most women I know yet, outrageously, stay pin thin. A perfect example was when I told my co-teacher that I would probably have pasta later. She smiled and said, "Yes pasta is a very nice snack. But what will you have for dinner?"

 A typical lunch at school. School lunches will always come with rice and kimchi and a type of soup.

My teacher gave me a walnut pie because she was worried that I was hungry. It was so nice of her! They are actually really good. They are sort of like little doughnuts with soft walnut in the middle.

Yesterday the cafeteria served purple rice - was surprisingly good.

Its difficult because the teachers seem to be a little offended if don't finish my lunch as if it is somehow indicative of not liking Korean food. Ultimately, I have been stuffing my face with piles of rice and soup and kimchi. I literally sit there, feeling like a beached whale in my next few classes after lunch and really do not feel hungry again until the next morning. One of the foreigners, Karina, was telling me that you really have no choice but to stuff your face in the beginning and ease off after a week or two. I suppose if nothing, it's a cost effective solution. What's even funnier is that they find it absolutely astounding that I do not have rice and kimchi for breakfast. One of the older English teachers threw his head back and laughed for a solid minute at the notion that I have 'cereal' for breakfast "oh noooo wahhaha"

In my town of Yeongju there is a ladies Facebook group that organizes events occasionally. On Tuesday we all met at a coffee shop. It was great, I had this giant mocha choc ice shake thing, it was like drinking ice cream. It was really nice to meet up with the girls and just chat. Its helpful because all of them are teachers with more experience than me. They gave me quite a bit of advice on how to deal with unruly high school children.

Yum.

I loved hearing from another really cool teacher who has what she calls the "fuck up book".  If I had one, I would have most of the school in it. In fact the way these boys act would probably result in them having competitions to see who could appear in the book the most. My co teacher, who is as docile as a baby deer, feels nothing to whip out her stick before each lesson. She picks up her lesson plan, smiles at me sweetly, grabs her broken chair leg and trots merrily off to class. Its just the done thing here in Korea although I still will never touch them.

The sticks in different colours ha ha

So as it stands, I will be off to Seoul and Paju next weekend to see Tamrin!