Word, White Day, & Work Friends

I’m at work, sitting at my desk, typing this on Microsoft word… English version. If you think I’m way too excited for this, you haven’t been condoned to doing heavy word/ppt/excel files using a non-english version (if English is your first/primary language). Plus, I’m a mac person. At work, I have to use PCs. And the MS office they have on these computers is XP…aka, all these mini-menus that I can’t read in Korean and all I want to do is make my margins smaller so all the text fits on one page and I don’t have to waste paper and why is this taking me 30 minutes to try and figure out?

So yeah, they got me an English version of MS office. And it’s freaking glorious.

I meant to talk about this earlier, but a few days ago was White Day here in Korea. To explain what White Day is, I have to talk about it’s more familiar counter-part: Valentine’s Day. In the west, Valentine’s Day is celebrated (usually) between couples where both parties give presents to the other in commemoration of their couplehood. In Korea, on Valentine’s day, ONLY the girls give presents to the boys. Then, a month later, on March 14, aka White Day, the boys return the gesture and give presents to the girls.

Since I teach at an all girls high school, there was no way that I was going to get anything -___-. But omg, my girls are so cute, I got some candy (yay) AND a GD & TOP poster!! SCORE ^^

Also, I'm proud to say that I think I won over this one teacher who I thought was maybe my biggest... opposition, shall I say. I mean, while no one has ever said anything or done anything to prove otherwise, I think some teachers may think me being at the school, and my role in the school, is sort of a joke. ALL of the english teachers, not just at my school, but across Seoul & I'm betting South Korea, have gone through a lot of training to be able to teach English. And they put in the hours & take on the work of "real" teachers. And here I come in, all English speaking, and work maybe half the hours the other teachers do, and the hours I'm there I "play games." Well, I don't just play games. And I've studied my butt off too. I don't know why, but I want their approval of me. I don't want either the students or the other teachers, to view me & my job as a joke. Because I take it seriously.

When I called that man my opposition, I just meant that the first day I met him, I wasn't sure if he liked me at all. He would tease some other teachers for talking with me. So I thought that he didn't like me/think I was of any value.

But today, we passed each other on the staircase, and we almost passed each other without saying anything when out of the blue he just says, "Michelle, right?" & all I say is yes & greet him in my limited Korean. Then I go on my merry/shocked way. But then later on, we were in the main office & we were about to pass by each other again, so I meekly bowed to him like I meekly bow to everyone EXCEPT the principal & vice principal, and I guess he didn't see me or anything because he just kept walking. But I guess someone saw me bow & told him that I greeted him, because he came to my desk and started talking to me. I, of course, needed a translator but he was making jokes and stuff. At first, I thought it was at my expense...but it happens to not be the case at all. AND THEN, he started showing me all this stuff, like his book he published!

Let me just say, I had a complete OMG moment. His book, from what I can tell, is a study. He keeps these crazy notebooks where he studies flowers, draws them with oil pastels, and then writes his observations about them. Theres even their freaking latin names in the description. These are honest to God, old school Rousseu-esque freaking notebooks. Like, who does this any more? I was so impressed. First he showed me his published book, then the notebooks he's complied over the years, then his expensive set of oil pastels, and a few other of his publications. He was swinging by my desk every few minutes with something new for me to look at. My co-teacher said that she thinks he really wants to be my friend LOL.

Who knew a few insas was all it took to win someone over? If only it were always this easy!