The Way It Is

I was sitting at my desk, modifying my after-school attendance sheet so that it equaled 20 classes, and I realized I should probably write this down in my blog. I'm sure I've already touched on how I need to fudge the numbers each month for my class's attendance, but I'll go over it again as I write about the way things need to be in Korea sometimes.

There are about 20-22 classes in my extra class each month, and regardless of holidays, sick days, absent students or even a city-wide natural disaster, I need to have 20 days marked down as having taught my extra class. One month I only taught 16, and so another teacher guided me through the process of erasing all the dates, adding imaginary classes into the attendance book, and being sure I was now logged as teaching 20 classes. I was only one short this month, but I still went and changed it anyway. That's just the way it is here.

I've taken quite a liking to the fruit juices they make at a lot of the snack shops and cafes here, but again, you have to get it the way it is. For example, mixing of the fruits in your juice is generally a big no-no. I love getting strawberry and banana mixed together, but 90% of the time, it's not allowed. I've offered extra money, pointed out that both fruits are RIGHT THERE and just need to be put in the blender, but regardless of how hard I try, the menu says it's like this and so that's the way it's gotta be.

Anyway, it's almost the end of an age, as there's less than 2 months left for me here in Korea. That's only about 6 more blogs! Geez, time is rolling by fast, but there'll be new stories and countries to write about soon after. I'm doing a Round The World trip with Shannon starting in October, which will last over 8 months and reach probably several dozen countries. I'll post a rough itinerary in the next week or two, once I have a better idea what it will be like. Thanks for reading!