Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Ballet

Wednesdays are ballet days, and Ballet day is by far my favorite day of the week.  The process of getting there is a bit stressful.  We have to go from snack to tornado like changing into ballet clothes in five to ten minutes.  I pick which group (boys) to stay with and make sure they don't ninja chop each other to death, while the other group (girls) gets to be trusted to go change by themselves in the sand play room.  More often than not, changing consists of me helping one person put on tights, while grabbing scissors away from another, while yanking someone else's shirt off, while tucking someone else into their little tutu/leotard. 

 All the sweat and pain is completely worth seeing how sweet and adorable they can be.


Sumin 







A Valentine's Day Ballad

Today in class I wanted to start a conversation about Valentine's day.  I did what I always do when I want to gauge the knowledge level of a certain subject around the room, I asked each student individually a question.  Today, my first question was, "What do you think Valentine's Day is?"  I got various responses, most of them being something along the lines of "It's when boy/girl gives chocolate to a girl/boy."

My favorite response from that round was from Sumin who said, "Valentine's Day is when Teacher Suzannah and I make chocolate and go to the play ground and run run run (simultaneously moving arms and legs in rapid running motion) and then and then (panting) fall down and and (lays head on desk)." 

 In scientific terms, we're going to get together and gorge ourselves with chocolate until our bodies are so inundated with sugar that we'll have an incredible burst of energy and run until we burn through the sugar. Then, our blood sugar levels will drop dramatically, and we'll crash somewhere on our foreheads in the playground never to be seen again.

I explained that Valentine's Day was the day we all celebrated love for someone special. I asked each student who they were going to celebrate love with.  Most typically responded with "my mom", or "my parents".  The interaction I learned the most from was the following:

Me: "Sophia, who will you celebrate love with tomorrow?"
Sophia: (big grin) "I am going to celebrate with Stephan!"
Me:  "Well that's sweet, Stephan are you going to celebrate love with Sophia as well?"
Stephan: "NO.  I am going to celebrate love with SJ"
Me: "Huh.  SJ, are you celebrating love with Stephan?"
SJ:  "Yes!  We are angry birds together!"

As they continued with their conversation, it dawned on me.....

Bromance has just proven itself to be a universal trans generational phenomenon that has been leaving women across the spans of time and Earth to color sullenly in the corner by themselves.  It's got nothing to do with me and there is nothing I can do to stop it.  I am not alone in this. 

And just like little Sophia today- we have all had our boyfriends look at us and say, "Not today, honey, I'm angry birding with my bro."    


Friday, February 8, 2013

Delectably Not Delectable



I've encountered some pretty strange foods over here so far, but the ones that keep throwing me for a loop and the food items I think are going to be salty, but end up being sweet when I put them on my tongue.  I couldn't really describe the feeling of thinking and expecting that you are going to be tasting salt and really getting sugar.  Like when for lunch one day we had a side dish of sugar sprinkled seaweed.  Everyone knows, seaweed is from the sea, which is salty, thus making so much sense that I perceived the white grains on my seaweed to be salt.  They were sugar and nasty. 

There has been a few instances like that. Like, when we had a "ham and cheese" sandwich for snack.  Upon closer investigation, the ham and cheese impostor was in reality a spam, cheese, mustard and strawberry jelly sandwich. Nasty. 

There was also the time I ordered a ball of Kimbap: tuna in the middle, surrounded by rice, topped with a sprinkling of  dried seaweed and sugar.  That made no sense.  

There is also cinnamon sugar fried chicken, which is actually pretty phenomenal, I'm not angry about that one in the least. Fried chicken is actually a big deal here, there are just tons and tons of fried chicken joints everywhere.  

There is also a great deal of sweet potato usage going on here.  I've had a great deal of sweet potato fries, mashed sweet potatoes instead of mashed potatoes, and the other day for snack we had sweet potato, hard boiled egg, and crab mash.  I don't know the correct term for it, other than: nasty.  

I know I've said it before, but once again, they are pretty sneaky with the fish/squid/octopus.  They really like to just throw in some tentacles in the main meal at lunch or serve this disgustingly fishy anchovy salad.  It's literally just hundreds of dried tiny tiny fish slathered in salt and some other sauce.  Also in category nasty.  

Quail eggs.  They sound like a delicacy, but they're nasty.  They are typically served here marinated in some form of sweet vinegary sauce.  Just a large bowl of tiny boiled quail eggs sitting in a vat of sweet weird vinegar sauce.   

South Korea honestly, just doesn't have much going for it in the culinary arts.  There are only so many ways to eat creatures from the sea.