Say Kimchi! My first picture with the obligatory "V" in EVERY Asian picture. (Yes, I know I now have many pictures from one night, but now you can see everyone I work with)
Uggh...Wonderland is not so wonderful sometimes. Now I know there are cultural differences, especially in terms of discipline and the way in which situations are dealt with, but the past few weeks have been ridiculous. This kid was misbehaving pretty badly the other day and as a result, granted he's bad pretty much everyday and this day he kicked a girl or something, it looked like he was just getting beat up by the Korean teacher. She punched him, kicked him, and shoved him into a pile of boxes. SCREAMING at him. And when the foreign teachers tried to step in, we got yelled at and told to mind our own business. We told our boss and he said he'd talk to the teacher about it, but it was super upsetting and makes you wonder why some people are teachers if that's how they're going to treat the kids. And then a couple days later, when one of the foreign teachers was tickling a kid, he squirmed all over as most tickled kids do and punctured his lip with his tooth. It wasn't really anyone's fault, there was a desk, they were having fun, and no one knew it would happen. But the Korean teachers, especially the one who freaked on the kid the other day, FLIPPED out and told the other teacher she was so horrible for hurting him like that and he was going to need plastic surgery, now he's scarred for life, etc etc. In the end it was a couple of stitches and the kid fell asleep in the arms of the foreign teacher. I don't get it! So frustrating sometimes...
In other news, I'm going to China in 9 days!!! I can't wait to see Wilson on our whirlwind trip around Beijing. I'm VERY excited to get out of here for a couple of days, especially with everything's that's going on. This weekend, I'm also going to the North-South Korean border with my internship organization and a group of refugees. They're going to see North Korea for the first time since they've left, they said they wanted to wave hello. Should be really interesting and I heard some people get really emotional when they go.
My gym is also crazy. I think working out is a really important thing here - people get super into it. But not like just going nuts on the machines for a while, but wearing one of those rubber-non-breathing suit things so you sweat as much as possible, having the matching track suit, and doing everything for a really long time. They also like to walk backwards on the treadmill, it's supposed to be good for you. There's this one lady who comes every day and alternates between two outfits - a hot pink track suit and a brown one. She's entirely make-upped and her hair is always perfect. She does biking and running and stretching, etc and then she moves to weights and EVERYTHING she lifts is done with her pinkies up in the air! It's kinda funny to watch. It's like she's being super ladylike or something. I feel like she's going to drop it half the time. It's good, it takes the attention away from me now that the "foreign girl who speaks Korean" fascination has worn off and been replaced by this.
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