The Do's and Don'ts of Desk-warming

This is it, folks. Today is my last day of desk-warming this winter. The new school year starts on Wednesday and I'll be in front of the class once again - doing what I get paid to do. I've learned a lot about the fine art of desk-warming this January and February and the time has come for me to divulge some of those secrets to you, our readership.

First, you ask, what IS desk-warming, Emily? Let me ever so briefly explain. During the school year -- we teach kids, during the breaks -- we sit at our desks. Why, you now ask? Good question. There is hardly anyone at school- no students, maybe a teacher or two coming in for a random meet or to clean their desks, and yet, here I am sitting at my desk from 8:20-4:20 (actually, its been more like 9-4:20, but that's beside the point). Our schools aren't being mean or spiteful, we signed a contract that said we would be at the school everyday except for national holidays and our personal vacation days. We suspect (though it hasn't been confirmed by a proper source) that these stipulations are made so that western teachers don't come gallivanting over to Korea and refuse to do things like teach English camp during the break, etc... 

So yes, desk-warming. Basically, there are a good number of days in the past month and a half that I've been sitting at my desk with absolutely no work to do. 8 hours at a desk. No work. Now, Chris has had a much easier time with this than I have. He enjoys taking things slowly and not having tasks piling up before him. I, however, have been stressed about having nothing to do. I get bored. I get frustrated. I feel worthless. You get the picture. It's driven me a little bit crazy. So I've had to implement a set of goals and principals for my day. They are as follows:

1. Don't check your e-mail, facebook, or do any internet research/surfing at home. Save every single bit of internet time for school. Not only do you have a computer sitting in front of you all day long, you also need to give your eyes (and wrists and fingers, etc...) a much needed computer break. I also do quite a bit of chatting online - I'll be honest, I mainly chat to Chris. We walk to work together in the morning and when we break apart to our different schools we always some variation of "Love you! Have a great day! Talk to you on g-mail!"

2. Bring food with you to school. You'd be surprised how long it can take to eat an apple when you are savoring every bite. I've learned to take my time with food and drink. I make a cup of instant coffee, and I don't do anything else while I drink. The coffee (or apple, or cookie, or pb&j) is not merely sustenance, but entertainment as well.

3. Shop. It's amazing all of the steals you can find online. I'm not advocating actually purchasing the items you are looking for, I'm simply saying that you can be a very well educated consumer. The next time I happen to need a set of floral measuring cups, I will not only know exactly where to find them, but I'll know the best price as well. (For those of you interested in floral measuring cups, check THESE cuties out  
Anthropologie Florist Measuring Cups

4. Find new, interesting (even mildly interesting) blogs and start at the beginning. You can read up to 3 years of a person's blog posts in pretty quick fashion. I feel like I've becoming good friends with Ree from www.thepioneerwoman.com, and Dara from www.cookincanuck.blogspot.com and Joy from www.joythebaker.com .... and so many more. Perhaps you noticed that all of these are food blogs -- this brings me to my next point.

5. Thoughtfully and with much research, plan dinner for the night. Now, DON'T plan in advance for the entire week. Only plan for tonight. I make a mental note of all the ingredients I have in my kitchen. I begin looking over blogs while I mull over whether I'd like chicken, steak, ground beef, or shrimp -- maybe even tuna. When I limit it to a specific meat (or perhaps another main ingredient that strikes my fancy) I begin the search in earnest. For this example, let's say I chose steak. Maybe 10 websites later I've looked at about 25 difference steak recipes. Some are Italian, some are Mexican, some are Thai.... What do I feel like tonight? I think I feel like Mexican. So I go BACK over all the Mexican recipes I've just looked at, double checking to make sure I have the ingredients or that I can actually acquire the ingredients in Korea for some less than exorbitant price. I think I've found it. Lime Steak Fajitas. Yum. Wish YOU could come over for dinner had have some with us, but maybe its better this way so that Chris can have thirds if he wants.

6. Try to think of creative blog posts.

Well, I hope that this gives you a taste of what I've been up to for the past few weeks. I can't speak for Chris and what exactly he's been up to while he desk-warms, but I have a strong suspicion that a lot of time has been spent pouring over cricket scores and articles and anything else you can read about regarding cricket. :) Ok, I should probably get back to all that instant coffee drinking and blog reading and I'll probably send Chris a message over g-mail just letting him know I finished this post!

Regular, everyday, normal life

People often ask us, "So, what are you guys doing over there?? Anything new? Anything exciting?" I always feel a little bad tell them, "Its all pretty normal, actually." Sure, we have funny things happen to us, but who doesn't? We regularly encounter horrible drivers, have funny exchanges with kids in our classes, and we buy the wrong ingredients in the stores. But even with those reminders that we live somewhere new, after 6 months here, life is starting to feel pretty normal.

Our first month was just a hazy. We like to refer to it has the "blur period." We were like babies. We had no idea how to get anywhere or use anything or find what we wanted. In that time, you assume that what you see is what you get. So, if I couldn't find any dish towels, I assumed that Koreans didn't use dish towels. If I didn''t see any chicken in the store, I assumed Koreans didn't eat chicken. Over time, though, we figured out how to get around our area and where to find certain kinds of food or other items we were wanting.

It's funny how a place that at one time was so foreign can become so regular and comfortable. We notice the smallest change in the junkyard across the street (such as 5 homeless grocery carts disappearing - a mystery?), we wave to the guy who directs traffic outside an apartment complex we pass every day (yes, Chris brags that the guy bows to him and not to me), and we know where to get cheap pizza just around the corner from our apartment. It is the little things like this that make our life here seem normal.

Our apartment is very modern and we've made it a bit more homey. A funny story though. Korea was taking a Census and they kept putting leaflets in our mailbox. They said, "Census" on them in English, but due to the fact that we didn't know what to do, we did nothing. Seems reasonable, right? One night our doorbell rang and Chris was the unlucky one to answer. Despite Chris's best attempts to communicate that he doesn't speak Korean, the woman insisted on talking to him and getting him to answer questions about the Census. When it became clear (why it took so long, I'm not sure) that Chris wouldn't be able to answer the questions in Korean, the woman promised to come back tomorrow at 8pm (how this was communicated, again, I'm not sure. The reason I'm hazy on all the details is that I wasn't actually present for any of these conversations. All of this is from Chris's mouth - I cannot verify its accuracy) She did return the next night with another census taker and Chris was able to answer the questions. A majority of the questions revolved around our apartment. Did you have indoor plumbing? Is your kitchen a modern kitchen? Do you have hot water? It's a bit amusing that these questions made it on the census when we (and everyone else we know) live in very modern housing, but I guess they wouldn't be asking the questions if it wasn't relevant to at least a segment of the population.

So to conclude, our life here is pretty normal. It's good, it has funny moments, frustrating moments, and we wonder if at some point we will no longer have indoor plumbing (I jest), but otherwise its pretty normal.