Episode 32: In Which DFM Goes "Camping" With His Students, And Learns His Lesson (Or Does He?) About Trying To Impress Girls

On Monday, Hyenii (the English teacher at one of my schools) told me that I wouldn't have class on Wednesday because the school was taking the children on a field trip. My boss however later told the school he wanted me to come along (I suppose he was worried about all the work I had been missing because of the school closures). While I would have liked to have had another day off, and having to wake up an hour earlier than usual to catch the bus from the school was not fun, at least I did not have to teach anything.

When I showed up at school I was told all sorts of different stories about where we were going. Some children said we were going to have a picnic, while others said we were going "camping." However, where we actually went was a smaller version of Edmonton, Alberta's Telus World Of Science (The Space and Science Centre, for all of you readers who don't have enough fingers or free brain cells to keep up with all the name changes the Centre has gone through).

Playing around with a bunch of fun science experiments all morning was quite fun. However, it would be a waste of everyone's time to read about it since you really had to experience them to be interested by them, so I won't write about them here. After the trip was over I was told to go home on my own by the subway. However, I decided to go climbing again for the third day in a row. This was a mistake.

I don't think climbing three days in a row was necessarily the mistake, but after an exceptionally hard day of climbing on Monday, and an ego-driven day of hard climbing on Tuesday (I tried to impress two of Korea's best young female climbers who were visiting the gym), I had absolutely no strength left in my muscles (힘없어). In the end it (trying to show off) was pointless, because both of the women were better climbers than me on my best days, and I was already weakened from the day before. Long story short, no one was impressed (at least one of them complemented me on my Korean).

There is a certain route in the gym that consists of 100 moves. Perry told me that the Korean name of the route translates to "Once Around The Village," which is perhaps the best name for a route I've ever heard. I've completed this route on three different occasions before this, but on this day I failed to complete even the first 20 moves (힘없어.)

Despite not actually climbing anything of significance, and probably doing more harm than good, I still managed to waste about three hours at the climbing gym this night. I was, however, able to worry that I may have negatively impacted my ability to compete to my full potential at next week's (this week since I'm posting this late) Ace Climbing Competition. I'll have to wait and see what happens after a good rest.

Episode 29: In Which DFM Brings Out The Dark Side In Korean Girls, And Chews The Heads Off Fish

The first couple of days of this week were marked by a "severe" cold snap. Severe that is for the Koreans, who were wearing winter coats inside, but I must say that 1 degree centigrade doesn't quite make for Arctic conditions where I usually live. That said, compared to the temperatures in the high teens we've been getting the previous week the change was still unpleasant. It also made me realise that I have a "clothing gap" between my light shell of a coat that doesn't really keep out the water when it rains, and my ski jacket that will probably be too warm even for the coldest of Korean winters. Luckily I noticed my local Korean sweat shop sells fleecy jackets that I might be able to get for a cheap price if and when the need arises.

With the cold weather, some Koreans have gone seemingly crazy. A Korean friend even told me that the two Seoul subway companies have a mental health counsellor on staff now because employee stress has risen as a result of dealing with the ever increasingly stressed out passengers.

How does this directly effect me? Well, the hard work the two Seoul subway companies spent to help create a respectful environment during my four month absence from Korea, seems to be for naught. On at least three separate occasions on Tuesday, an old Korean woman tried to sneak in to the subway train before even one person had left.

To put this in perspective, the behaviour of a fair number of Koreans in subways is rather rude by "Western standards," but a pet peeve of most of the "foreigners" I talk to is the fact that the people waiting outside the train will try to sneak in before everyone coming out of the train has left. I have to admit that I also get annoyed by this, but usually they only try to sneak on just before the last two people leave, so I can forget about it. What really irks me though, is when an old Korean woman (it's always an old Korean woman; they're the rudest of all Koreans, I'm sorry to say) gets paranoid and tries to push people out of the way to get to an empty seat that doesn't exist. It irks everyone else too, because most people would have given her their seat anyway (not me though, because they annoy me). On the subway on Tuesday though, I saw an old Korean woman try to sneak onto the train before the one person leaving had even taken a step. This man put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back off the train, and gave her a short lecture on not being rude. This man is my hero, and this moment was definitely the highlight of the week so far for me.

Another funny story involved Sticker Girl at my school (everyone remembers Sticker Girl, right?) The story involves a new teacher from Paris who I had to show around my school to give her an idea of what to expect and how to teach for my company. Since I knew it would be tough for her on her first day, I tried to get her to sit by a friendly child so that she could feel welcome. Unfortunately, I didn't think things through clearly because Sticker Girl was quite cold toward the new teacher. Afterwards she (the teacher) asked me what she had done wrong. I told her, "nothing, Sticker Girl has a crush on me, and she views you as the enemy because all the boys said you were pretty." The new teacher said "oh yes, I didn't realise that, she must really hate me." She's only 6 years old, but she's already mastered the Western female art of being overly jealous. Good work Sticker Girl.

In other exciting occurances, I met Perry again on Tuesday (Tuesday was a good day). He had been on a trip for the Korean government, leading a team of Korean youth up mountains in Italy, apart as well as being overly busy with his booming public speaking/personal motivation business. As a result he had not been climbing since July, but when he returned, it was "business as usual" and I went over to his house after climbing for some delicious food. This time his wife was not home, so we were forced to make do the best two "bachelors" can do. Perry bought some Korean spicy ramyeon noodles (which aren't so spicy for me any more) and tofu. He then mixed this all together with an egg and microwaved some fish that we ate head, bones, skin, tail and all, which is ironic since Koreans will peel all of their fruit before eating it because it's either sprayed with "chemicals" or "not delicious."