Survival of the Fittest

I have successfully completed my third week of teaching in Yeosu, South Korea. There were some times I thought I wasnt going to make it through the day without getting sick...but nothing so far has affected my health! Korean children, mold and the consumption of live fish have failed to defeat me. (Birthday party at school for morning kindergarteners)

Working with kids is like working at a doctors office. There are always kids sniffing up snot and picking their nose, and then run up to you and wipe their dirty little hands on you and grab your face and give you kisses. I have never washed my hands so much in my life (thank you Christina). This week began with a head lice check. Parents were calling in and complaining. Great! Then I go to a morning class and there are only 3 out of 10 students present. Come to find out that those grumpy kids the day before all had chicken pox and their parents decided to keep them home from school... a few days after the disease has infected half the kids at Edu Best! So then I hype myself into thinking that I am going to get head lice and the pox all over again, (I remember my days soaking in an oatmeal bath) and red spots appear on my skin. Lukily it turns out that those red spots were only from the mosquitos that inhabit my room which I refuse to kill because my time spent in India convinced me not to harm any sentient beings. My co-workers laugh at me, and I am beginning to question my compassion for these parasites.

My compassion also extends out to all hungry sentient beings. As you may know, I dont like to waste food, so when my bread started to get moldy I was in a bind. I picked off the moldy parts and ate it. I ate a few pieces with the visible mold removed and did not get sick!!! See, I made my body immune from the toxicity of mold! And everyone always told me it was bad....I thought I heard somewhere before that mold was used for healing, no? It cant be any worse than eating raw fish from my neighboring ocean which just suffered from an oil spill not too long ago and also has a chemical factory on the shoreline.

So last night I went out for a sashimi dinner. I was very excited to eat raw fish, as I was expecting to eat a lot of sushi in Korea, but there is not much around. They like it cooked here. Well when I arrived at the restaurant, the table was set with lots of wonderful appetizer dishes. Some of it looked...well interesting and I tried it all. It was not what I was expecting. Octopus, squid, ass fish, clams, snails and what we called "a bloody vagina." Some of it on closer inspection was still moving around on the plate. All of it was chewy. Then we got tuna, which was the main course and some fish stew (looked like all the leftovers from the day) to finish. There was no rice served...needless to say, they do sashimi a bit different than America.

Then I went to a bar that lets foreigners in. There are lots here that dont because some of us cause trouble (probably Americans). Drinks were $7 which is absurd for such a small town in Korea. I guess they are supposed to have a show with flaming drinks and spinning bottles but the performer is not so good anymore and spilled/dropped most of it. It is still the most popular bar here for some reason.

I get a week off for Christmas vacation and I dont know what to do! I may visit an old city nearby and see some famous Buddhist temple. There arent many left around here...lots of the Koreans have converted to Christianity. Churches with bright red lit up crosses are infamous here. And can someone please give me advice on how to cook rice? I ruin it every time!