Monday, April 04, 2005

From Russia with love

The following happened last Wednesday:

I was at school, in the middle of a class, teaching a small group of small children about colours. Things were going as usual when, all of a sudden, a Caucasian woman in her early 20's walks into my classroom. I had never seen her before in my life. I said, "Hello," in a rather surprised tone of voice while thoughts such as, "Have we inexplicable hired a second foreign teacher?" and "Can things get any stranger?" went through my head. She smiled, but said nothing and walked to the front of the classroom, where I was. Once reaching me, she showed me a laminated card with a paragraph written in Korean on it. I indicated that I don't know Korean. She nodded and then explained to me, in broken English, that she is Russian and that she was traveling here and trying to save some money. Then she opened a case she was carrying with her and asked if I wanted to buy any Russian items. She had necklaces and nesting dolls among other things. I told her that I was in the middle of a class, but to wait ten minutes or so until I was finished so I could take a closer look. She nodded, and left. She must not have understood fully or perhaps she was on some sort of strict trinket selling schedule because she was gone when I finished my class. She apparently was seen in the ECC parking lot a day or two later. It was really rather odd.

Otherwise, last week was a bit of a wash. I felt a bit despondent about coming back after the holiday in Japan and really didn't enjoy teaching in the least. I'm better now. It helps that tomorrow is a Korean holiday so I get an extra day off this week. The weather is great and is supposed to stay that way so I think Laura and will have a picnic or some such thing tomorrow.

That is all.

Guy

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

How bizzare. I'm getting so excited to think about spending next year in China. It's the differences we *don't* expect that seem the most intriguing.