D'Arcy arrives, shabu shabu, and a rough day

D'Arcy arrived safe and sound, and made her way into Suji at about 6:25. After over 28 hours of travel, she seemed fine though somewhat overwhelmed. She would be teaching the very next day after all.

It was pretty surreal to see her round the corner into the staff room. D'Arcy and Korea, together? Crazy. Two worlds collided. But it was a welcome collision, I must say. Her being here makes me feel like I've been here forever. I can't believe it's already been two whole weeks. It feels like a second and an eternity all at the same time. I can feel myself getting more comfortable and confident as time goes on. But I liked the newness. I liked meeting new people who would ask me how long I've been here. "One week?!?!" they would exclaim, "and you're on the subway alone in Seoul??" I'm not longer so impressive... ;) I guess I'll have to learn to be impressive in other ways.

She was shown around the school and since it was Barbara's last night here before heading home to Canada for a month, we all went out for a shabu shabu dinner. Shabu shabu! Mmm! Three cheers for shabu shabu! Apparently I'm over enthusiastic about the food. The others can't understand my photographing addiction. Ah well. The big pot in the middle of the table bubbles with an orangey broth of some kind. I think it's beef based. First you add lots of mushrooms and greenery and let it boil away. Drop in thin pieces of beef too and let them cook. Eat. Next is the noodles; thick and delicious ones. Add them to the broth and let them soften and suck up the flavouring. Eat. Mmm. Finally there is rice with egg and various other things. The waitress empties the pot of the broth and fries up the rice et al. in the flavourful pot. Delicious. All for six bucks a person, but this time payed for by the lovely Saenk Yu director. Thank you Saenk Yu.

D'Arcy was ready to collapse by this point so she was brought to a hotel to sleep. I think she said she slept off and on the whole night, thinking about her family and friends. Today she was thrown right into the shark pit without so much as a single combined class. Thanks for nothing, people. At least when I came I was helped out by another teacher for the morning. I couldn't help out D'Arcy because my kids are three and four and her kids are seven. She's handling it okay.

Back to me. My day has been long and tiresome. The last three have gone really great so I thought that I had mastered the art of kindergarten teaching. Not so much. They were rather out of control today and my head is pounding because of it. I want to go to sleep. I want it to be the weekend. It's almost the weekend! Hip hip hooray! And after the weekend there is only one more week before vacation!