Day 93 -- Midterm Week

So I haven't updated because there's not much going on. My "vacation" is decent despite being called in to the school far more often than I think I should be. Yesterday, I had to go in to discuss travel expenses for my conference. The school should have been responsible for settling this and letting me know, but since I don't have a co-teacher, a lot of these things fall on me now. I was ticked about that, especially when a 10 minute discussion got stretched into me staying at the school for a full work day. I got a call today from two of the English teachers saying that the principal wants to talk with me before the conference, which means yet again I am going into school during a week off. This time, I'm sure he'll just give me a 5 minute pep talk--which he thinks he is fantastic at--and then I'll be left totally ticked that I had to make the 20 minute journey to get there only to turn around and start the 45 minute journey home. alasldkfja

Friday is the Gyeongju conference though and I'm just going to hold onto that. He can't call me back to school from Gyeongju (or can he?)

In other news, I got a gym membership finally. It took me a long time to communicate to my host family that I wanted to do weight lifting, which is impossible at the public track. My host father finally understood, pointed to the 2.5lb weights his wife uses, and annouced "You can use these!" When I said thank you, but I need something heavier the look on his face explained instantly why so many Koreans have stick-thin limbs.

Apparently, gyms in Korea are called "health clubs". My health club membership cost me 60,000W/month, which is ridiculous to me considering how much less useful the place is compared to my gym back in America. But it's better than the public track, I guess.

EXCEPT FOR THE NAKED.

In Korea, showering with same-sex is totally acceptable. And I don't mean like camp-style, I mean a big room with a bunch of shower heads, no dividers or anything. When I walk into the locker room to drop off my things before working out, I am always confronted with full-frontal ajumma nudity. They're not just on their way in/out of the shower, they just mill around the room totally naked. It's taking some getting used to but... ugh... man...