February

After 46 days (so one of my students calculated) of sitting in a freezing cold, empty staff room with only the occasional holiday class to justify my salary, speaking to no-one and doing very little, I am now back into the routine of sitting in a stiflingly hot, crowded staff room with only 2 or 3 classes a day to justify my salary, speaking to no-one and doing very little. Not to worry – it’s the end of the school year next Wednesday followed by a 10 day Spring Break when I will be alone at school once again, though happily the weather is much warmer.

Yesterday I was finally cajoled, tormented and bullied into joining the teachers’ weekly volleyball game. My track pants and trainers, which have come in very handy while cleaning and lounging, had the briefest encounter with their intended environment. I may as well have been wearing 6 inch stilettos for all the running around I did. I stood at the back, positioning myself as best I could behind the tallest and most energetic members of my team, hoping the ball would not reach beyond them. If it did, my instincts kicked in. With a swift dart of the hands to protect my head and a deft shuffle of the feet to evade the ball’s trajectory I managed to avoid serious injury. By the end of the first game I was a trembling wreck and an obvious liability so was allowed to help flick the numbers over on the score board instead.

There’s nothing like a good team game to make you feel like you really don’t belong. I joined the team huddle, where I assume they were discussing strategy, added my palm to the pile in the centre, but remained silent during the rallying cries as they were in Korean and haven’t the vaguest idea of what English people shout on such occasions. After the games I also failed to enjoy the sliced pig’s feet that were served, being forced, as always, to ‘try just a little bit’. It tasted like meat. Whoopee. I may spend my time in the Spring Break recalling the excuses that kept me out of P.E. lessons for my final three years of secondary school.

I gave up smoking yesterday evening. Waking up this morning my first thought, as always, was ‘cigarette’, but today it was ‘cigarette? I don’t need one!” and felt liberated from the chains of addiction. Though it’s early days yet, I know from my extensive experience of giving up that temptation comes through other smokers or stressful situations. As I only know a handful of people, all of whom I meet infrequently and only one of them a smoker, that shouldn’t be a problem. The greatest stressor in my working day is deciding what to wear in the morning, so that shouldn’t trouble me either.

To fill the huge tracts of time that torment the non-smoker, I plan to get out more, get physical. It feels like I’ve had a long winter hibernation (though winter has been short by British standards) and now, it seems, spring is here again in Namhae. For the last week or so, temperatures have begun to stretch into the teens and most days have been bright and sunny. Time to dust off my hiking boots, kick start my scooter and get out into the countryside to fill my poor abused lungs full of fresh sea air.