Questions I Find Myself Asking

Since beginning my life here in Korea, I've noticed that there things, mysteries if you will, that keep popping up but are never really solved. Or...themes...that keep recurring. So, in order to give you a glimpse into my day to day life, I present a list of questions I find myself asking on a regular basis:

1. Why would you want a heated toilet seat when it is 35 degrees outside?

2. What did I just say!? (to students who are continuing to do things I have told them not to do.)

3. What is that smell?

4. What exactly am I eating?

5. What's for lunch? (followed a disappointed groan when I read the day's menu for the caffeteria. Does the phrase very many oil suffice to describe it? Almost.)

6. What is that smell?

7. Whose file is this? (to a group of students who are rushing to get out of the classroom to make it to the snack machine first but who will inevitably come knocking on the staff room door demanding to have their file returned to them.)

8. Who does have the right of way? Aren't cars supposed to give way for pedestrians? (which is evidently not the case. I have to get rid of this belief if I'm to survive the year here.)

9. What can I buy at homeplus today? (like a little chunk of normalcy, Homeplus is the department store down the street where you can buy pretty much anything you need with minimum amounts of stress. Sometimes we go there just for fun. And I find myself thinking of when my Grandpa used to say "If you can't get it at the Bankend Co-op, you don't need it. " Same goes for Homeplus.)

10. Seriously, WHAT IS THAT SMELL!!!!!????

11. Why did I drink so much soju? WHY!?

12. WHAT are you staring at!? (usually while walking down the street or doing something completely normal)

13. Could this be any more random?

and finally,

14. Come on now, will someone PLEASE tell me what smell is?



While I have just realized this paints maybe a very pessimistic picture of life here, please don't take it that way. With a few grains of my unfailling sense of humour, all these things just become part of the charm of life in Korea.

Peace out.