Finding Love in Korea

I debated between two different titles for the title of this post and I settled on this one because I figured it would make everyone go "ohhh!!! there's a guy!" and I just wanted to crush your hopes in the first sentence. There isn't a guy.
The other title option was "The never ending stupidity of Tara who can't seem to do anything right". But that was too long.

So, first comes first: my stupidity. You know you don't usually use hair products or hair anything when the first time you use a curling iron you leave it on. All day. While you're at school. Oops. Good thing the curling iron was on the table with all my school papers and tons of other easily flammable things all cluttered around it. Well, I guess that's not such a good thing. Now in case you think I think it's funny, well you're wrong. You probably could've heard my heart drop when I realized I had left it on. Especially since I kept reminding myself to turn it off before I left and still forgot. It's only funny now that I know I didn't burn my whole apartment complex down. That would've sucked.

Now for the story I know you all want to hear. Adelle is the only person in Canada who has heard anything about this topic so far, but it is way to funny not to tell anyone else. Especially after what happened yesterday. In suspense yet?
There's this teacher at Samseo Middle School (Wednesdays school) who speaks very little English and only comes in after lunch the day I am there. Over a month and half ago he tried to talk to me, but his English is so terrible that he usually ends up just getting my co-teacher to translate since I never understand what he is trying to tell me. Well he did a couple magic tricks for me one day and found out quickly that I was very impressed. So the next week he brought in a couple more tricks and taught me a couple of them (which I so don't remember anymore!). Eventually I guess he figured since he couldn't talk to me he might as well impress me with magic tricks. I didn't mind since Wednesdays are usually really boring since I'm done at 2:15 and have to be bored until 5 when I can leave. So he spends that time showing me tricks. I'm not complaining.
About three weeks ago he brought in this massive box of magic tricks. What he didn't count on was that the students would find out that he had them so he had more of an audience then just me. So anyway, at the end of the day he's trying to talk to me, but my co-teacher wasn't around to translate. He wrote some stuff on a piece of paper, but it made no sense to me. I THINK he was asking me what I thought about him, but I'm not sure since I don't remember his name. (it seriously is hard to remember Korean names. You try it). I just said I don't understand over and over again. Eventually he gave up. I thought he would be done with everything, but no, he wasn't. He tries to say something else that sounded like "poop-ee". Natually, I had no idea what he was saying. So he rolls up his sleeves and shows me his muscles. I almost died laughing. Thankfully none of the other teachers were paying attention (they all keep telling me the guy likes me and it just gets really awkward at times and they really don't need any more ammo against the situation!). I thought he was saying the word meant strong. I was wrong. Again. He comes over and gives me a present of Popeyes. Not your regular popeyes, but these swirlly things with sugar balls in them. I know, bad description, but I don't know what to call them. They're very good though. So now he had given me a gift. Oh boy. Then just before we go to leave he whips out his camera and asks to take a picture of me. I couldn't refuse. He wouldn't understand anyway. So I said ok. Well to him "ok" meant he could take tons of different pictures going in a full 360 around me taking one from every angle. He could probably print them off and put them in a circle frame and if you spun it, it would look like I'm turning in a circle. You know, like those pictures you draw in a book and flip the pages and it looks like someone is running? yeah. like that. He probably took enough for it too.
Later my co-teacher comes and the conversation now turns to him wanting to drive me home. While I'm frantically trying to come up with a good excuse why I can't get a ride home with him, my co-teacher pipes up saying that he said he needs a new car first. I hope he NEVER gets a new car. Later I found out that he doesn't even live in Gwangju and it would be an hour out of his way to take me home. My co-teacher tells me that "he tried getting married before, but he failed". When I heard that, I had to hold in the laughter. I'm pretty certain that's not what she meant to mean, but the way she translated what she was thinking into English it came out this way. It was hilarious.
So anyway. Yesterday was Pepero Day which is basically valentines day in November except not because they have Valentines day in February too. On this say people give chocolated coated cookie sticks to each other. Some of my boy students gave me some and it was so cute because they wanted hugs for them. They got hi-fives instead. I was dreading Pepero day when I realized it would be on Wednesday. I was so sure that magic man would buy my a whole box of them. However, I got lucky. I had a meeting for winter camps at the Office of Education after lunch so I left before he came. I was relieved. After my meeting, Kristen, Gabrielle and I were waiting for our ride when guess who shows up? Magic man. He waves so enthusiastically and comes over giving me one single pepero and runs off again. Kristen was so excited to see magic man since she's heard all the stories that I didn't think to look at the pepero he gave me. I should've because the director of camps came over and asked me who gave me the pepero. I said one of the teachers at my school did and he seemed a little surprised. So I look at the pepero and it is covered in white and pink hearts says "I love you", "heart to heart", and "Please remember that I love you more than anything". I almost died. Although I'm pretty sure magic man has no idea what the English words on the package say, the pink and white hearts kinda give it away.

Koreans seem intent on setting me up with everyone. Today the owner of the corner store by my place asked if I wanted to get set up with the guy from England who I've run into a couple times in the store. Then a lady I met while running got excited when I told her I didn't have a boyfriend (of the four questions every Korean knows in English "do you have a boyfriend?" is one of them) and was trying to find a paper to give me her address. Don't know what I'd do with that.

So there's my week. Other then all that I just did student speaking tests in all my classes so this week was easy. I love giving speaking tests. I can scare the students easier by telling them I'm a hard marker and no one will pass! I know, cruel, but it's fun.
Oh, and p.s. this post is early because I am going on a road trip this weekend and probably will be too tired to post Sunday night like I usually do. So enjoy the extra post.




These pictures are from my second trip to Mt. Naejangsan that I wrote about last post. I didn't have any other pictures to put up since then so you get these.