Sounds Like Eighteen

So, last Monday, I was supposed to have a chicken & beer party with Mr Kim, the PE teacher, you know the guy, the funny one who can never speak English to me in the lunchroom because it's his "non-English-speaking day" or some other humorous excuse; Mr You, the music teacher, who is going to America in January for some kind of conducting gig; and various hangers-on.

Well, that was not to be, as the head PE dude scheduled a PE department meeting (which was probably also a chicken & beer party, though that's neither here nor there) for the same date. Trouble is, no one told me there was a change. I even turned down another offer because of it. I am left standing out in the cold. Literally. An attempt is made to assuage my hurt feelings with samgyupsal on Thursday at lunch. Considering we still have half a day of school, no beer is involved, so I'm thinking that's not an even trade, even if the food is incredibly delicious. Which it is.

So here it is a week later, and we have our "appointment"--only Mr You can't come. Fine, that's more beer for me, right? Mr Kim, Miss Cho, young Mr Lee and myself end up being the only participants to gather in GMC Chicken House, about two blocks from campus. Not to denigrate the others, but if Miss Cho is there, I'm in for the long haul.

Turns out to have been a really good time as, frankly, English speakers outnumbering Korean speakers (it was another of Mr Kim's "non-English days") works out pretty well for me, at least once in a while. I mean, damn.

So, we solved the problems of Korea's approach to English education, I learned why Korean is so difficult to learn (has to do with Chinese, in a way I forget exactly), examined why soccer is better than other sports, and why Man U is better than other soccer teams (okay, that last was more of a tour de force than a deliberated decision-making process), I taught them the worst English swears, and they taught me the worst Korean ones.

Now you know I'm not going to say, I'm not that kind of blog.