So cold

I moved to Busan because it is in the south and I thought it would be warm. I was wrong, it is cold as hell. The big problem is that the school has no central heating, only small gasoline fueled heaters throughout the school. The one in my classroom keeps a corner warm but the rest of the room is freezing.

I know most of you have never experienced a Korean bathroom but let me tell you right now that you aren't missing a thing. They all stink horribly and our school hallways reek of feces sometimes. The men's room smell so bad, even to Koreans, that the windows are all left open. That was fine during the fall but now it is just plain shitty. There is one upside to all this... the $300+ toilet seat. This wonder of technology washes you (a teacher nearly flooded the stall trying to show me what the buttons do) and even keeps your bum warm! That's right, the bad boy is heated! There is nothing like having a warm tookus while contemplating the meaning of life.

I went to visit my friend Steve in Yeosu this past weekend. It was good to get out of Busan for a couple of days and nice to meet other no Koreans.

One negative thing Korea has brought on is that I am again susceptible to motion sickness. I get car sick now with little effort. On the bus ride back from Yeosu I was miserable since the bus was kept at a constant temperature of hot as hell and the bus driver felt that subtlety with the gas and brake were beneath him. I am shocked that I didn't get sick all over the bus. Now if I am in a car or anything for longer than 2 minutes I get nauseous.

The other week we had an "English Festival" for the students. Part of that was having a group for each class perform a skit for the entire grade. I never heard so many "shits" and "fucks" come out of students mouths before. They know these are bad words but they're sailors, so shouldn't they talk like them? Some of the skits were pretty funny though.

Other students had to give "speeches". There are 8 classes and each class had one student give a "speech". It was more of a memorizing lines things than a speech, but oh well. The problem was the the teacher in charge of this only chose 3 articles/poems to choose from. So the students had to sit through 3 versions of Sermon on the Mount, 3 of The Giving Tree, and 2 of some article out of Chicken Soup for the Soul.

I bought a new computer last week. I've gone mac. When my co-teacher saw it she asked why I got a woman's computer. The little webcam caused quite a stir though and everyone soon decided that next computer would also be a mac. I think Mr. Jobs needs to send me some sort of commission.