Coffee Helps

I sometimes wonder what it’s going to be like for me, language-wise, when I’m no longer in Korea. It only struck me recently just how many Korean words I naturally throw into my everyday speech these days, to the extent where they come more naturally to me than the equivalent English words. Most of them [...]

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Ugh, I am a total wreck. For a start, this is what the weather is mostly like these days: Often higher, never lower. The only reason today’s temperature is showing as being in the 20s is that I’m writing this at night, when it is apparently capable of dropping below 30. This probably doesn’t seem [...]

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Goal! 1-0. Silence. Everyone gazes at the screen in pain as the Uruguay players hug each other in ecstacy and their fans cheer jubilantly. No one here moves. No one speaks. It is horrible. I kind of want to go home. Goal! 1-1. The whole place goes mental. Absolutely stark raving mad. It is like [...]

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I started learning Korean last night. This may sound like an odd statement coming from someone who’s been in Korea for nine months and has mentioned attending Korean lessons on several occasions throughout that time. However, Korean is a very, very hard language. Even the Koreans will tell you this. Actually, they’re kind of proud [...]

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If you’re a devoted reader or a stalker or something, you’ll remember that I spent a few weeks last year during the Summer of Gloom writing a series of articles about green tea. (Fifty, actually – count ‘em!) While it wasn’t the most exciting job in the world, I did find the subject matter much [...]

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Just one of those little moments that reminds me that however stressful my job can feel at times, and however exhausted I am, it’s totally worth it. – Hello~  Hayley teacher! I go to Mahyook elementary school now. I met Sarah teacher here. You don’t know who’s she.  She was old teacher in kindergarten, when I [...]

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I have never in my life experienced an atmosphere like the one in Korea over these past few weeks. They are the most fiercely patriotic and proud nation I have ever seen, and while this can sometimes be frustrating, it’s mostly a wonderful thing to witness. And now that World Cup fever has hit, it’s [...]

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Korea is a small country with a huge population. To put it into perspective for you, South Korea, covering 38,622  square miles, is not all that much bigger than Ireland (as a whole), which covers 32,544 square miles. The population of the whole of Ireland is about 6.2 million. The population of South Korea, on [...]

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I was talking to someone last night about the number of times in my life when I’ve passionately declared something to be my “favourite thing in the whole world”. I’m a bit dramatic like that. Anyway, we decided that it’s perfectly fine to do this, as favourite things are likely to only be temporary – [...]

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Today was Bring Your Dad To School Day. This was very exciting and great fun – for the kids, I mean. For the teachers, it was nerve-wracking, exhausting, and completely underpaid. I had to do eight Musical classes in a row. Eight! My usual maximum number of Musical classes in one day is four, and [...]

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