Using the School Budget to Buy Things

Teachers don't get paid nearly enough, especially when the exchange rate drops to half of what it once was. So, in times of need, every responsible teacher will in turn use the school budget to bring a little more happiness into their lives.

In my case, the school has recently purchased three things. Two iguanas and one fog machine. While originally I named the iguanas Dr. Argyle and Freddy Four Fingers, the students did not fully realize the genius of the epithets, and instead have reverted to Igu & Ana. Philistines. Here is a picture of them on my couch. Better pictures to come.




Secondly, the school put together a haunted hallway type of thing for halloween, for which we suggested student council buy an expensive fog machine. Shortly after halloween, the fog machine disappeared. Shortly after that, the fog machine showed up in our apartment. Shortly after that, we had a fog party. It got ridiculous. I don't think sitting in a room full of fog for 6 hours while drinking heavily can possibly be good for your health.


Above: Prepping for the fog party in Studio B

Hanguk Sans

One of the best things that I've spent a lot of my weekends here doing is climbing the many mountains around the city and elsewhere. Hiking is always something that was generally reserved for the summers back home, but now that I have the free time and am able to get around on Maggie easily, I've been trying to hike at least once every couple of weekends. Mostly it has been local mountains like Jangseongsan or Mudeungsan, but over our thanksgiving break Mike and I were able to head up to Seoraksan, up by the DMZ in the Northeast part of the country. Although almost every trail was closed due to the snow, we played the part of confused hwaeguk saram (foreigners) and hopped the fences or banners. While we did get a 5 minute lecture by a korean park ranger, it was easily worth the nodding and insincere apologies.




After the extended berating, we followed a trail which led up to this little cave in the side of a rock face, which happened to be a really small buddhist temple. As we were quite tired from hiking 6+ hours without any breaks, it was nice to just sit there and hear the chanting of the monk. He was banging his sticks together really loudly. Had it been a little kid, I probably would have been annoyed, but somehow his get-up and the location gave it a nice, relaxing effect.


This is a view out of the cave.

The buddhism ran thick at Seoraksan. So much so that they built one the size of a small building at the base of the trails. It had a nice presence.





Although this post has been centered mostly around Seoraksan, I've really only been there once. Most of my time hiking has been around these parts:


Above: Looking up at Mudeungsan
Below: Looking down from Jangseongsan