THE WEEKEND COMES, THE WEEKEND GOES

It’s Monday morning and here I sit in the teacher’s room again. They have staff meetings every Monday morning which I didn’t know. It seems I’m in my “before school” class when they have them. Boy, are they boring. No one cracks a joke. Maybe I should learn a good Korean joke and share it. It might liven things up.

When I saw the principal this morning he said, “Good Morning”. However, I replies “Bahn Gup Samida” which means “nice to meet you today” or something like that. He didn’t smile. Oh well. I’m trying.

It’s about 80 degrees in this room. I wish they would turn on the air conditioning. I’m told that I only have to work until 1 on Monday and Wednesday and until 4 on Tuesday and Thursday during exams. I don’t really understand why, but I don’t mind leaving early. I think I’ll decorate my classroom today, or at least start to. I’m straining for activities to pass the day. The day will come soon when I’m sitting here reading novels.

Robert came to visit on Saturday. We went to the DMZ and I was a little disappointed. For such a huge thing that separates 2 halves of the same country, they could have provided more information. There was a tunnel they discovered in the 70’s that the North Koreans built to use to infiltrate South Korea. It was a steep walk up and down but not very interesting. There was a an observation tower where you could look into North Korea, but the sky was cloudy. And you hand to stand back from the edge of it to take pictures. Maybe they thought we were spies.

I just had to go and see how they do exams. The principal asked one of the teachers to walk me around and show me. The kids sit in the class and write down their answers. The teacher stands at the front of the class and monitors things while a parent volunteer stands at the back to monitor things. That was quite the revolutionary system.

Robert and I also visited the English Village. That was my 2nd visit but I thought it would be interesting for him. He was impressed but I’m not sure he approved of the big bucks that went into it.

We then went to see “Superman Returns”. If there is only one movie you don’t see this year, than this is the movie not to see. It was about 2 1/2 hours too long. Oh wait. It was 2 1/2 hours. A plot (thin at best) that was full of gaping holes, wooden acting, and just plain awful. The only 2 interesting things in the movie was that Noel Noelle had a small part in it. She played Lois Lane in the television series from the 50’s. And the long dead Marlon Brando was in the credits. They used his voice as the father of superman again from the 1st movie. That guy is dead and he’s still looking to make a buck.

We had dinner at pizza hut. We got a stuffed crust pizza thinking that stuffed crust meant stuffed with cheese. No sir. Not in Korea. It was stuffed with sweet potato. Needless to say the stuffed crust remained on the plate.

All in all an enjoyable day of doing things.

Sunday was a quiet day which was fine. Can’t be the man on the go all them time. So here I am for another exciting week at school. The weather is getting quite warm during the day, but not Texas warm. The nights are beautiful. Cool and comfortable. Like me.

Better get back to work now. Oh, what work?