A clown and a doumi are walking down the street . . . jokes that you'll never learn in English class but your teacher wishes he/she could teach, lol.

I haven't been blogging over the past week because it's the end of the semester at the university where I work and it's been pretty busy.

A co-worker and friend of mine, Shane, is the freaking Obiwankenobi of organization and time management.

Every time--over the last five days--I'd say something like, "Shane, are you going to give the journals back next week in the exams?" He'd reply, "I gave them back last week" (my emphasis). I still haven't completely established new paperwork habits to replace the bad ones I developed from working last year at a training center that worked me nearly to death. I'd just pile anything and everything that wasn't a priority in the next teaching hour (literally the next hour) on my desk . . . I barely had enough time to make lesson plans and teach my classes each day let alone proactively organize paperwork and admin stuff . . . all I have to say is that working there was worse than working here,

Anyways . . . today in Chuncheon the temperature was -17 with the wind chill factor making it feel like -27. Julianne and I decided to walk to a restaurant not too far from the university for dinner.

On the way there we saw this clown and a doumi ("entertainment dancing/promotion girl" is the 'polite' definition) promoting the opening of a new restaurant. They were greeting people on the street and trying to direct them to the new place . . . if you don't live in Korea you'll be shocked by the girl and how she's wearing 'hot pants' outside in -27 temperatures . . .



The clown was able to speak a little bit of English and was very friendly. Julianne and I have now watched the video almost 10 times . . . we giggle like little kids every time he says, "Canada, oh! . . . I love Canada!" And as he says this he puts his arms over his head with fingers touching the top of his head in the signature Korean "I love you" gesture that is so popular here.

Later on after dinner Julianne and I took a taxi to the train station to buy tickets to go to Seoul. It was too far and too cold to walk. Suddenly I noticed that we were driving by the clown and girl in front of the restaurant . . . they had been about a block away from it when we saw them the first time. I ALMOST told the taxi driver to stop because they had a DJ table set up with speakers and balloons. The girl was dancing and gyrating furiously (I imagine to avoid hypothermia) and the clown was doing his own kind of dance on his stilts too . . . damn! I wish I could have gotten their act on video too . . . oh well, I'm sure I'll see something similar in Seoul this weekend if I'm lucky.

J