Day 318 in Korea: My Birthday and an ode to my co-teachers

I've noticed that for the last few years my birthdays have been slightly depressing and unremarkable. And I'm okay with that, believe me. But this week has been so much fun (for the most part.) It's weeks like this one that help me to realize that I've won the teaching-English-in-Korea jackpot.



There are two different sites that many, many, many English teachers (and other expats) in South Korea frequent: Dave's ESL Cafe (www.eslcafe.com) and www.waygook.org (waygook is foreign country in Korean.) On these two sites, (especially Dave's), people congregate to complain. They complain about their co-teachers, they complain about their schools, they complain about their students, their teaching topics, EVERYTHING. It's depressing. But I digress.

They complain about their co-teachers because they have a reason to complain. Some of the stories that I've read about how other co-teachers and schools treat their Native English Teachers (NETs) makes me sad inside. Most of the NETs that are here are in their 20s, are single and without children. However, many of the Korean English Teachers (KETs) that we've been assigned to are opposite in every conceivable way. NETs are placed alongside KETs that they have absolutely nothing in common with, which can make for potentially disastrous (albeit sometimes hilarious) results.

However, like I said, I've hit the jackpot. ^^

My co-teachers are flippin' amazing. I can't even begin to describe the many ways that their awesomeness blows my mind. I can talk to them about anything (and trust me when I say anything) and not have them worry about judging me or misunderstanding me. Sometimes it takes a while for me to explain exactly what I'm feeling (although to be fair my word skills are often somewhat lacking even when speaking to a native speaker) but they are always willing to listen and help me through whatever problems I'm having.

They knew that this week was going to be tough for me: being away from home is difficult and I'd confessed earlier that I knew it was going to be difficult to be away from family on my birthday. It's been years since I've seen family on my birthday [except for my brother, but does he really count? (this is a test to see if he reads this)] but I've usually been able to see them the weekend before or the weekend after. I knew I was going to miss Grandma fixing a special lunch for me on Sunday (I miss your pancakes Grandma!) and I wasn't looking forward to Wednesday.

Throughout this blog, I've avoided naming my co-teachers and friends for a lot of obvious reasons, but this is going to get really confusing really fast, so I'll use initials instead.

On Monday, E. asked if I had any plans for that evening. I told her no and she told me she wanted to take me to Ashley's (a fantastically delicious Western food buffet.) How could I have turned that down?! So that afternoon we trekked to the Ashley's that is close to her apartment, which is apparently that largest in Korea. We took the subway to Hoegi station, where she bought me a bouquet of beautiful pink roses!  We grabbed a taxi and headed to the restaurant. Upon arrival, I immediately started drooling. Pasta...pizza...gloriously ripe fruit...tantalizing Caesar's salad...and most importantly cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesecake. Ji. joined us shortly after we started eating inhaling the exceptional food.

All throughout supper, there was the most adorable little girl I have ever seen in my life entertaining us. She couldn't have been more than 5 years old and had the kind of glasses that are so thick they make your eyes seem bigger. At first, she just kind of looked at us and ran away. But eventually she worked up the courage to come up and say "HELLO!" two or three times. Cue cuteness explosion. We finished eating and went downstairs, where there was a small department store. We walked around for a while, shopped a bit, and then decided to head to Doota, one of the largest (if not the largest) clothing stores in Korea. Although it's really not a store...it's a gathering of 8 floors of small stores-sometimes chains who want a presence there and sometimes independent clothing designers trying to break into the business.

We headed up to the very top floor where there was a rooftop garden with a breathtaking view of Seoul. We ordered a cup of coffee and some waffles to munch on (waffles are a very popular snack here) and sat down to just shoot the breeze for a while. So relaxing :-) Then we decided to venture into the shops and see what we could discover. No purchases, but it was a lot of fun looking.

Tuesday was my normal meeting with J., my uber-helpful friend. Usually we meet at a subway station halfway between my apartment and her workplace, but today, we decided to meet a Coex, Asia's largest underground mall. Why? They have Uno's Pizza.

Korean pizza is...different. For example, an extremely common topping is corn. And sweet potatoes. The first pizza that I had in Korea had sweet potatoes in the crust. So needless to say, I was quite excited about Chicago-style pizza.

And it did not disappoint.

Of course it wasn't as good as real Chicago pizza, but, man, did it ever hit the spot. I love Korean food, don't get me wrong, but my appetite yearns for comforting and familiar food every once in a while. After an amazingly satisfying supper, we just sat and talked for a while, switching back and forth from Korean to English when we felt like it or when I had a question.

Wednesday was also fun, although not in the same way Monday and Tuesday were. I was able to talk to family and watch my niece shriek with delight while playing with her new ball and the other teachers in my office bought a blueberry yogurt cake and sang "Happy Birthday" (in Korean of course) to me.

I would once again like to say that I'm incredibly lucky :-)

Oh, and how did I celebrate on Wednesday? I took a flippin' test! The last Korean class of every month is test time, and this month it just happened to fall on my birthday. Grr. But I passed, so all is well!