Dog soup

New pictures!!! Clicky clicky, on the right. I've added some of my classroom and some from dinner tonight. Just to make you jealous.

Well, it's happened. After waffling back and forth on whether or not I could bring myself to eat dog meat if it was offered, we had dog soup for lunch yesterday. Of course my co-teachers only told me what it was after I had already taken some, so I had to eat it. It tasted just like any other chunky soup in the cafeteria, so I should probably reserve judgment until after I’ve eaten it somewhere else, if I ever do. Whew, glad that's at least behind me.

This is not the dog soup. But it was tasty!

But wait! Is it? While I was out with a group yesterday evening, I filled them in on my newest culinary adventures (over free mashed potatoes and beer, natch). The group, which included a native Korean, insisted that the soup couldn’t possibly have contained dog, since eating dog is now illegal and dog meat is expensive these days. I have absolutely no reason to distrust either party in this argument. Perhaps my co-teachers were just testing me to see how far I would go to avoid insulting them? I sure hope I passed that one.

I ought to be on the happy list at school, one way or the other. I may not be a stellar teacher, but I do formal written lesson plans! Apparently this is a big deal, and my co-teachers think I'm working too hard. Thing is, as inexperienced as I am, that's the only way I can effectively think through an entire lesson. Also, when the principal came around at our teachers' dinner on Tuesday and demanded "One shot!" of me (a Korean version of "bottoms up"), I did exactly that. Gone was my beer, and smiley was the principal. Score?

I also learned last night, post-beer and mashed potatoes, some very useful Korean phrases. I believe these will come in handy during the cleaning period when I have to supervise many pre-teen boys who are hell-bent on hanging out in my classroom, making noise and generally doing anything but cleaning. The main problem with this scenario is that when I yell at them, they have only the slightest clue what I'm saying. But there is a solution.

I now present to you the English Teacher in Korea's Classroom Survival Vocabulary (Please excuse the poor Romanization. I'm working with what I've got here.):
Haji-ma! Don't do that!
Manjiji-ma! Don't touch!
Crokay-ma haji-ma! Don't say that! (particularly useful for those students fond of using the f-word in class)
Idiwa! Come here!
Ya! Hey!

And to close, my life these days, summed up in pictures: http://roketship.com/
I actually got the small face compliment today. (See, Mom, not everyone thinks my nose is big!)