Not in the mood...

Hi all....

Me again. I'm not really in the mood to write a long post today. Things feel like they are finally settling. There's still stuff happening, and news to report, but it feels like 'normal' now. I could have written yesterday, but wasn't in the mood, thought I'd feel more up to it this morning...but still not... But as they say, when you don't know what to write, just start writing the first thing that enters your mind, and before you know it...you're writing. Hey! Look! It's happening right now!

Ya well...so...I had another Friday holiday last week. It was sports day at my high school, which meant, no classes. It gets pretty boring, though, the sitting round doing nothing. I watched the sports for a few hours before lunch, then a short bit later in the afternoon.

(INTERJECTION! I'm sorry but I have to share this...I couldn't understood why I was smelling tuna salad at my desk this morning. Hoped it wasn't my new Gucci perfume! Turned out, the smell was coming from the plate of rice cake handed to me when I arrived earlier. It only clicked when I actually bit on it. (I had breakfast at home, so wasn't planning on eating it, but I was reminded by a very nice lady, so I couldn't disappoint her.) How on earth you get 'cake' to smell like tuna is beyond me. At least it doesn't taste like fish, but it's so weird. It definitely smells like fish, but it doesn't taste like it. Kinda screws up the senses, though. So there's a bit of Korean weirdness for you first thing on a Monday!)

Sports Day (also called Athletics Day) is a bit different to what we're used to in SA. Yes, they had the usual sprints by the promising athletes, but EVERY student had to participate. Those who are obviously not gifted with light, swift feet, competed against each other - 2 teams at a time - by dribbling a rugby ball around the 'goal post' - in the form of a teacher. As you can imagine, the rugby balls complicated matters quite satisfactorily.

There was no shotput or javelin throwing. But they included fun games like we would do in camps....e.g. a relay race that was set up like an obstruction course viz. drinking some revolting concoction that reeked of rotting fish guts - the poor kids were retching while they ran to pass the baton! - somersaults, picking something out of a dish of flour with their mouths, throwing an arrow into a chalice, climbing over things, etc etc. There was tug 'o war, dodge ball, and traditional Korean games. Loads of fun....

(Urgghh! I just can't get away from the fish smell!)

A word about team representation.... teams seemed to be grouped in homeroom classes. Each team had their own t-shirt. And then....some teams accessorised as follows: huge pink bows in their hair, or big sunflowers....and get this .... BOYS as well as girls! Can you picture these kids running races with big pink bows flopping over thier eyes? Strange, but true! So, naturally rather enjoyable to watch :)

After lunch, there was a bit of a performance. Some boys had dressed up in traditional female Korean garb, adding the pink bows. They ended up dancing for the other students - choreography based on K-pop (Korean pop music). At one point, all the students advanced on the teachers with water bombs and water pistols. Which was actually refreshing, since it had really started getting hot and steamy.

I'll say it again....my high school feels like a party school.

Since being in Korea, I have been meeting up with friends, or gone sightseeing, almost every single weekend. It was time for a break. Time to draw myself toward myself, enjoy my own company and do things my way, on my own steam.

Saturday, I headed to the city with a mission: shop till I drop. I had a list, and shop I would! I deliberately took a later bus, knowing that Geoff takes the earlier bus every Sat to his Korean class in Daegu. Hoping to avoid him, I opted for the later option. Much to my chagrin, Geoff was late that morning, so ended up on my bus. Now I had eaten only a small yogurt as breakfast with my daily dose of vitamins. The bus was stuffy, Geoff was ranting as usual, eventually I started feeling horribly nauseous. Whether I actually found Geoff's company nauseating or whether it was simply a case of too-much-vitamin-too-little-stomach-lining (I like to think it's the former!), I eventually told Geoff that if I seemed unresponsive to him, it was 'cause I was trying very hard not to hurl. He hadn't even noticed! Self-absorbed so-and-so! He finally said, that if I needed him to shut up, just to say so, and then proceeded to motor on! Oh what a character! I wish you guys could meet him. The next bus we took downtown, the driver actually told him to be quiet, and we were right at the back of the bus. (Sound familiar?) Eventually I told Geoff that it sounded like he was shouting when he was talking. He seemed very surprised. I tried to be nice about it, telling him that I understand that teachers sometimes forget to switch off their teacher-voice in public. Anyway, things were a bit more bearable after that.

Anyway, so I proceeded to shop, and later settled down in a cinema to watch 'Angels and Demons' - quite good - before heading home.

So, you see, not a very exciting weekend...pretty normal, all things considered.

Keep warm and healthy....nice to hear the ANC being exposed in the Western Cape.

Love,

Andrea