An Empty Week

My host parents are listening to instrumental Christmas music and looking at old family photos in the living room. It's so cute! And I would join them, but I have a few thousand words left to write for Nanowrimo (having lowered my personal goal to 30,000) and only a few days left to do so.

Speaking of Christmas (성탄절/sungtancheol, or just 크리스마스), I maybe lied when I said the weather was getting colder. Or, at least, today proved me completely wrong. It was about as cold as a California winter today (which is to say, magnificently warm). Maybe God just wanted me not to complain so much. But honestly, it was really nice. 따뜻한 날씨를 좋아해요!

On the other hand, what's not so nice is the fact that I've been stuck in my gyomushil (교무실/teacher's office) literally all day for the past two days, and will be again tomorrow, even though I'd love to just chill outside or in a park somewhere. My school basically shut down for two days while a hundred-something middle school third-year students came for their admission exams and interviews (면접/myeonjeob, or just 이터뷰). It's serious business, one that I'll describe in more detail later.

In any case, all classes were canceled (the students had to stay in the study rooms all day for two days; my deepest sympathies go out to them), every other teacher was busy administering interviews, and I had about eighty persuasive essays to correct. Aside from the Buzzfeed breaks, it has not been a terribly interesting or fulfilling two days. And tomorrow, since my new(est) schedule has left me with a free Thursday, I guess I'll be doing more of the same. So by the end of this week, I will have taught only four classes; two on Monday and two on Friday, and all four periods taken up completely by speaking tests. I can't actually remember the last real lesson I taught. Goodness.

Well, who ever said teaching would always be crazy and fun? Sometimes you hit unexpected doldrums, and you've just got to keep paddling.

I'm going to leave you with a (only vaguely related) Korean proverb (속담/sokdam) that my host mother told me a while back, for a reason I can no longer remember:

똥을 밟으면 재수가 좋다.
Ddongeul palbeumyeon jaesuga cho'da.
If you step in dung, you will have good luck.

And I have no freaking clue what this website is, but it looks suspiciously like a collection of proverbs, all related to poop and (or in?) dreams. "Restroom Proverbs". Korea, I'm mystified. Please explain.