Today's Highlights

My boss gave me some silly English stuff to help her with, riddles and such. Like "Can a kangaroo jump higher than the Empire State Building?" She had written "No, it can't," beside the question, but I crossed that out and wrote, "Yes it can. A building can't jump." I've heard that one before.

Another task was to write the main theme or topic beside a list of 5 words. I know I got one of them right: "accident, stock market, car, loud noise, airplane: CRASH." Two others I was unsure of: "snowstorm, winter, white, wind, cold: BLIZZARD(?)" "proof, legal, born, document, old: CERTIFICATE(?)" and one, I just don't know, "drink, inn, bar, pub, England: (?)" I thought "lager" automatically, but I don't know. What do you think? Anyone?

One of my co-workers was in a horrible mood today. When asked what was wrong, she said "nothing," though obviously it was something. The teachers' room was filled with bad mojo, and I wasn't the only one who noticed.

I stayed and chatted with my boss for about an hour after work, and finally left the building to find the street permeated with a delicious smell. Ah, "Chicken Man," with his giant oven filled with rotisserie roasting little chickens on the back of his "chicken truck" was in the neighbourhood. I wondered what they're seasoned with, it smells a little cinamonny.

I stopped to pet a terribly thin dog, standing statue-still on a white bench in front of the street-video games. Chicken man offered me the dog to take home. I declined, telling him I have a giant cat at home. Cute dog. Chicken Man told me it was a Pomeranian, but it looked more like a Poodle.

If I had all kinds of money, I would open up animal shelters here and start a massive PR campaign to attempt to change Korean attitudes about stray animals. (I've been told they're "dirty" and therefore un-adoptable.)

I had dinner outside, sitting at a bench at a food stall. I ate chap'che mandu (glass noodle dumplings) and hunks of squid, as a massive tray of bright red chicken feet sat in front of me and threatened to ruin my appetite. Three different drunk Soju Men separated from their groups of Other Soju Men to come over and comment on the book I was trying to finish. I think they felt that James Frey betrayed Oprah and should have ensured his book was published as non-fiction, rather than a personal memoir. That, and the hand displayed on the front, covered in tiny multi-colored balls you'd normally find in a capsule, was kind of pretty.

I came home, did laundry, washed dishes, wrote student reports for two and a half hours, and then chopped vegetables for a giant pasta salad as I watched The West Wing. It was a Christmas episode, and it made me cry.

Tomorrow I'll bring the pasta salad to school, and hope the bad funky aura my co-worker was sporting today will lift. No one can be unhappy in front of tupperware filled with pasta salad, eh?