A Story That Draws

I woke up to the rattling of trees and the shivering of windows. As my myopic eyes searched the room to locate the time, I couldn’t help but feel slightly alarmed by the clamour coming from outdoors. It was 5:00am. With heavy eyelids and a sense of submission to the elements, I snuggled back under my sheets. When I woke up again later, the noises from two hours earlier had quietened. When I was about leave for work, a colleague living below me knocked on my door to inform me that school would start late due to a power outage. When I did eventually walk to school, the damage made itself evident: glass crunched underfoot, signs and tree branches had been tossed into the streets, cars and buses were creeping along in the stifling traffic situation. Typhoon Kompasu had landed in South Korea. The electricity was still out when I got to school and I was thankful that I had only a five-minute walk to work. Many of the teachers had wedged their way onto a teeming bus, only to be stuck in traffic for triple their normal travel time. Despite the chaos and excitement, all of my students eventually trickled in and the day continued quite uneventfully... until around 6:30pm.



So, word on the street was that a Costco (big, bad, and loaded with deals) could be located about a 20-minute bus ride from school. With the two of us on the verge of being diagnosed with 21st century scurvy, Morgan agreed that perhaps we should venture out. I must mention that, once again, the directions and estimated time of arrival for this Costco business were rather fuzzy. About 35 minutes later, we were there: huge automatic doors opened for us in a warm embrace. Yeah, right.

I’m going to shorten the next hour and a half: Morgan warned me I couldn’t let him overbuy. We needed to take the bus. No E-Mart sequel. But then... we found delicious food. And more. And more. Until our cart was brimming with good finds. An oversized container of cashews? Obviously important. Three giant Heinz ketchups? Meet Morgan, the only man in Korea who only needs one "side dish". After emptying out my entire Korean bank account at the cash (I wish I was exaggerating), Morgan and I decided to park our cart and eat a slice of classic Costco pizza before approaching the “pack your own box” addendum to our adventure. With greasy fingers and stomach aches, we entered the den of cardboard, hoping for a miracle. None to be found. Several enormous boxes later, we found ourselves heaving on the corner of the street. Wait, have I mentioned that one of Morgan’s monstrous apple juices fell and split open upon leaving the store? Yeah, it peed all over us until we decided that it was simply a Costco casualty. Goodbye, juice. Luckily both of us have a great sense of humour, or else tears would have been shed. The bus seemed like a horrendous idea at this point, so I decided, headscarf and all, to hail a taxi. (I mention the headscarf only because my students think it’s strange and hilarious. They didn’t know me in my daily headscarf phase circa 2008). Anyway, the first taxi driver said “trunk too small” about six times before pulling away. The second driver said he wasn’t going to Anyang (I’m pretty sure he also took a good look at the mountain beside us). So, we started schlepping our things to the bus stop. Jesus carrying the cross minus the composure- that was me. Anyway, Morgan said we should give one more taxi a shot, and what do you know, he’s the nicest man this side of Seoul. He helped us load the car, was chit-chatty all the way to Anyang, and then backed up to my door and helped us unload. If tipping was customary in Korea, it would have been an early Christmas for that man.


Now, at this point you may be wondering if I moved to Korea to make it into the Guinness Book of World Records for Most Shopping Accomplished in a Two-Week Period, or whether I’m actually a teacher. Guys, I swear I’m teaching.


In all seriousness, I love the teaching. I try to dislike the fact that I spend hours planning and attempt to muster that distaste for “slaving” here that some seem to develop, but I honestly can’t. I feel comfortable, supported, creative, organized. I delve into my projects and have the resources to execute them. And I am slowly seeing the rewards of my enthusiasm. This past week, as I was diagramming to my class how our foot’s arch does not touch the ground, I was told that I am “a story that draws”. The student will never know what those words meant to me. Besides the learning, I am simply beginning to connect with my students. They say silly things to me like “You look delicious!” They have also now figured out that I have a boyfriend in the school, since they connected my desktop photo with Morgan’s face. Today at lunch, the girls were confiding in me how many boyfriends they each had, until the count reached 2010. I’m guessing the year is as high a number as they can imagine. One boy also yelled out “Franzi-Teacher is wearing panties!” when I referred to my jeans as pants. Good grief. I never thought someone would correct me on that one. Anyway, as you can imagine, they’re full of beans. They are currently learning about the sloth bear’s habit of sucking up termites through the gap in its front teeth. Naw, it’s probably not that important, but it sure is kinda gross.