i love 떡!

especially when it's free in the teacher's room. Woo! At this moment i am eating a few pieces of sticky rice cake, or ddok, to help digest my cafeteria lunch of rice, soup, fish, and kimchi. it';s making me happy, and so is the cup of coffee sitting on my desk.

I'm in a good mood today because teaching's going pretty well, this weekend is gonna be great, and I got a phone call this morning from my violin professor that I will be playing with the Gyeongju Symphony in October! Yay! They'll be playing the Grieg Piano Concerto (don't know who the soloist is yet) and -get this- Schubert's Unfinished Symphony! I'm pretty excited if you can't tell by all the exclamation points. So today or Monday, the conductor (whose daughter coincidentally goes to this high school) will come and drop off the music for me. I'm looking forward to it! Lucky that I happened to start studying violin with the concertmaster, right?

Anyway, another reason I'm pleased with life right now is because I am continually amazed at how willing everyone in the school is to help me out. Earlier this week I mentioned to the ethics teacher that my camera battery was no longer recharging, and guess what? At this very moment my new camera battery is in Busan, having been smuggled from Japan. Hilarious. I was worried at first, but she reassured me that such things happen all the time. I laughed. Also everyone is just so warm and welcoming. One of the teachers who's currently taking classes in Daegu (she'll be back in the Spring) needs to interview an American in Korea for a project for her class, and she wanted to interview me today- but she insisted that I go to dinner with her as well. I feel like if I were in their situation, I would be a little scared of the foreign teacher, but they've all been so eager to talk to me and spend time with me. It's very nice. Totally unlike my France experience. At the same time, I don't really feel like my boundaries are being crossed. I kind of expected it, but I think this school's teachers are a little more low-key and hands-off than some other schools in Korea. Unlike in some stories I heard from previous ETAs, these teachers don't go out drinking together every night, or spend much time together outside of school at all. I almost feel like it's safer this way....But anyway. Time to go get ready to teach my advanced class about FOOD! I'm showing them some typical American foods from different regions of the US: NY vs Chicago pizza, Philly Cheese steak, starbucks coffee (the original...), mexican food, bagels, etc etc. Should be fun.