January Update

I've been working very hard on my cooking blog recently, so this poor little travel blog has been somewhat neglected. Also, I didn't want to write anything after having a bad week last week - I had two bad days at work in a row (a combination of greed, inefficiency, and plain rude students), with a bad morning in between: we ended up making stupid mistakes and spending way too much money on taxis on a trip to Home Plus, where some of the basics (like chicken and milk) had risen 50% in price. I think the breakdown was also partly due to the lack of cheese in this part of the world. Thankfully this week has been much better, although I'm dreading today for reasons I will expand upon below.

Tom has been needing a haircut for a while, and luckily one of his adult students knew a hairdresser who had worked in Australia for a year - Tom was adamant that he didn't want a Korean haircut, so jumped at the idea of someone who has at least seen other hairstyles, and who must speak a bit of English. We found the place on Sunday, and although the man's English was minimal, Tom came out with a perfectly decent haircut. And promptly started complaining about how cold his ears were. Yesterday (Wednesday) I finished knitting a (very plain) hat for him.

I also have a hat!

Didn't knit it myself though.

In two weeks, it is Korean New Year - the lunar new year starts on 3rd February, to be precise, which means that we're only working Monday and Tuesday that week. Just this morning we booked a hotel in Seoul from the Wednesday to Saturday, and are very excited about spending my pre-birthday-weekend in the capital. On Saturday, if not before, we'll be able to book buses there and back. We've been looking at museums and palaces and wine bars (of course) on the internet all morning.

In the meantime, though, today is Thursday, which means I've got one class which I absolutely hate. It's just one student, and I've heard that he is meant to be the best English student in the district - but I'm afraid to say he's just stupid. And rude. I dread teaching him, especially today, because on Tuesday I found out that he has been lying about me to his mother and his mother is now refusing to pay for the times I have taught him. As far as I know, this won't affect my salary, but I do sincerely hope that his mother withdraws him from our school.

Oh well. Just 36 weeks to go!