Day 41: Slacker

Today was a really mellow, relaxed day! I came back to work from lunch in the afternoon, but was told by Steven at the start of my 1:30pm class (the dreaded Grade 1's) that I could go and 'rest in the office' instead of teaching. Wow, cool! Turns out that because I had been left to teach all the afternoon classes the two days prior, (which I really don't mind,) Steven was feeling a bit guilty or just wanted to do something nice for me. So, he actually gave me the whole afternoon off!! HE TAUGHT ALL FOUR OF MY AFTERNOON CLASSES FOR ME!!! Yippee!! He insisted that I sit and relax in the office, and he and Susan fed me coffee and strawberries all afternoon while I sat and read my Lonely Planet: SE Asia On A Shoestring!
I ended up just sitting on my ass and reading from 1:30pm all the way until the end of the day - 6pm. It was really nice, but I felt like such a slacker! But hey if they're insisting on paying me to sit and read all day I'm not going to fight it! Man I've got a great job!!! :-)

So I was pleased today to not hear any 'cheep-cheeps' at all this afternoon. Neither of the two students brought in their chicks, so I don't know if that means that left them at home, or that they're dead. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the latter, but I didn't want to ask and find out so I just left it at that. I'm really hoping that this whole chick thing is done now and that'll be the end of it, but I'm not gonna hold my breath on that one. Spring is still just beginning and I'm sure this won't be the last time that I have to deal with baby animals in my classroom. I'm going to try and find some solution anyways, and will keep on trying to educate the kids on how to treat the animals better. Wish me luck on that one!!!

I went into Itaewon tonight and met up with my friend Michael for dinner. If you remember Michael was the really nice guy who drove me around Seoul on a little sight-seeing tour of the city back in my first week here in Korea (he's the guy who's met Craig.) Anyways I hadn't seen him since then as he's been busy switching jobs and moving into a new apartment. He now has a great little apartment right in Itaewon half a block from all the good clubs (awesome for me - a place to crash on weekends?) :-) We went for dinner to this really yummy Indian restaurant called Maharaja. The food was cheap and awesome and it was my first non-Korean and non-Western food since arriving here. SO GOOD!!!

Michael is a super cool guy and I really like hanging out with him - he's fun and friendly and has the same interests as I do. We made some tentative plans to do some hiking and exploring of Korea this summer and I think that will be great fun. After dinner we went to this really funky lounge down the street where we paid we had 2 ridiculously-overpriced after-dinner drinks. Michael had a tea and I had a hot chocolate and the bill came to the same amount as what we paid for dinner!!! What the...??? The lounge had a great atmosphere and was a really cool space but hell I'm not gonna pay $9.00 CDN for a god-damn watery luke-warm fake-whipped cream hot cocoa again!!! ;-) Haha!!

It was then time for me catch the train back home. While on the bus back to Shihung I was sitting at the very back and these two middle-aged guys came on and made their way to where I was sitting. They were both absolutely shittered and one of them could barely stand! One of them sat down on the seat next to me while his buddy stood and swayed with the rocking of the bus. Anyways the drunk guy who sat next to me ended up passing out and sleeping on me!! And I don't just mean near me, I mean *ON ME!* It was like he put his head on my shoulder and leaned his whole body in and just started...cuddling? I wasn't quite sure what to do - I mean the poor guy was so pissed drunk that I didn't want to just shove him off, but it was still kinda weird to have a drunk stranger using me as a pillow. His buddy meanwhile thought the whole thing was quite funny (as did I) and just watched and laughed. Their stop was the one before mine so I got to ride like this pretty much all the way home.... I figured that I'd just be a good sport and let the guy sleep on me. I mean let's admit it, we've all had our moments where we've had a few too many drinks and end up making an ass of ourselves in public, right? I figured I'd show some support and be like "It's cool buddy, I've been where you are, I got your back, no worries man!" Let's just call it 'Drunk Karma' - it all comes back to ya!!! ;-)