icecream is like magic... just like my friends here are awesome

 I’m so glad that I have made such great friends here. At work, Nicole gave me lasagne with her own home-made risotta. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who can make their own cheese in a tiny shoebox apartment. You might think it’s creepy, but I think she’s awesome. When things aren’t going well….I take a bite of her lasagne and mm…who cares what that crazy 50 year old korean man thinks about me being late?

After work, I met up with Audrey and she tells me “Don’t worry. He can’t even write a letter. He doesn’t know English.” TRUE. Which was why I didn’t really care about what that crazy man said…because I didn’t believe he would be able to do that. After sharing stories of hagwons (hagwon means academy in Korean) I feel much better because I realized that everywhere is just the same. I think there’s this group of minority (hopefully) of weird mental old-ish korean men who are drawn to work in hagwon as managers. And those are the people we deal with everyday. I just hope not all korean managers are this weird. Really, who wears the SAME OUTFIT EVERYDAY?? He only changes by season. I swear…..all through winter, he was wearing the same white shirt with the same oversized baggy coat (even indoors..talk about creepy). And now that it’s spring, he’s been wearing this blue polo collared short sleeve with a white/tan blazer/jacket which doesn’t quite fit. I sometimes wonder what his wardrobe looks like (but not too often, I’d prefer not to think about him so often). 

One thing I like about myself is my speed of recovery. I’d say I roll with the punches pretty damn well. I get over things quickly, and I think I’ve learnt to do so even more here in Korea. This is really a place where you can’t take anything too seriously and you just have to sit back and see to humour in it. How can a branch manager sign and stamp my reference letter saying how great I am and then threaten to send them an email? That’s just unprofessional. And the school is so big, he’ll never know what department to send it to. Nor will they know who this weird korean man is talking about. Ha. 

Which reminds me, before I leave I’m definitely going to take a photo of him so you guys can see for yourself just how creepy he really is. You might think I’m exaggerating, but he is one weird looking human. He’s always got a huge cheesy grin plastered on his face but he’ll say the most depressing things ever. He’d be smiling, but shaking his head and sighing and saying he’s tired *AT THE SAME TIME* he’s got it down pact to perfection. No joke.

Anyways, after school, Audrey, Nicole and I went to eat at this pancake restaurant *nope, not sweet pancakes…but like Kimchi pancakes*. We had seafood pancake and this pot of food called galbishim? I don’t remember the name but it was so yummy…it was beef, carrots, dok (rice cake), noodles all boiling in one pot and it almost tasted like Chinatown curry beef tendons with radish……mmm it reminded me of Chinatown! I miss Adelaide…..

I was super full after that. But….. still ate ice cream. I tell you, icecream is like magic. You can feel full to the point of bursting and dying, but if you eat icecream, you will feel less full afterwards. I don’t know how that works scientifically… IT JUST DOES. It’s magic.