The Awkward Bathroom Situation at LCI

The 2nd Floor bathroom during lunchtime.

I just want to take a moment to introduce one of the more awkward parts of my school: the bathroom. Our school has 5 floors, 4 of them have bathrooms. Each bathroom is similar to this one. That is: notice how it's 1 ROOM? Notice how girls and boys are separated BY A WALL? And ONLY a wall?
I call this the Awkward Bathroom Situation. For the little kids, it seems to not be a huge problem. Or, maybe they just get used to it really quickly. At first, I think some of the girls would try and peek behind the boys' wall and the boys would try to line up on the girls' side...but they got bored with that after a while. Apparently, the mystery has worn off already.
For teachers/adults, this is where the uneasiness comes in: when I go to the bathroom, if there are Kinder around, they all rush over to the girls side and start yelling my name. Also, for teachers, what if I have to go to the bathroom at the same time as a male teacher? That's just weird. It has happened only twice, and that was several months ago. What made it even more awkward that one of the times, one of the male teachers tried to talk to me. And I thought, I know you are over there, but that does not mean we need to acknowledge the fact we're in the same room. You pretend you don't know what's going on, and I will do the same.
This is not Ally McBeal. We do not need coed bathrooms to create more interesting social situations.

Sweet Roll Day



This was the afternoon edition.
Can you believe there were more in the morning?



Occasionally at LCI, the cosmic forces of the dessert universe align, and we end up with Sweet Roll Day. Last Thursday was just one such day. We started out with 2 sweet rolls, gained another 2 at lunch...by the afternoon the original stock was gone, but somehow quickly replaced with more sweet rolls. Sweet rolls very rarely travel independently; usually, they arrive in groups of 2 or 3.

Koreans seem to have a healthy love for the Sweet Roll. And Korean moms are fairly convinced it's a foreigner's favorite food. So when they come to visit, there's bound to be a Sweet Roll Train not far behind.

Sweet Roll goodness.

This is not related to LCI, but just proves the love Koreans have for the Sweet Roll.

Typhoon Let Down!

So, this big typhoon that was supposed to happen? That I was totally gearing up for? That I dug through stuff and found a poncho for? That was supposed to wreck havoc in the metropolis of Seoul?
Yeah, I slept through it.
It, apparently, hit about 6 hours earlier than expected...which puts it at around 6ish AM here in Seoul. I remember waking up vaguely and thinking, huh, it is really windy outside. That construction site I live by is going to be a mess. (Then again, I live by a construction site...have lived there for 12 months. There is always loud noise.) But I didn't think it was the typhoon, because the typhoon wasn't supposed to hit until during the day. I thought it was pre-typhoon weather and would slowly build up to the typhoon.

I woke up at 5:42 to go to the bathroom, batted an eye at all the wind and rain, and was thankful I still had 18 minutes until my alarm went off. My alarm went off at 6, I opened 1 eye, pressed the snooze, and slept until 6:20. Then I really did wake up, stumbled to the bathroom, and started my morning. Apparently, this was when all the storming was going on. I wasn't fully awake. I didn't really notice.

When I set out for work, this is what my neighborhood looked like:

OK, some bushes were out of place, but the neighborhood ahjummas were already on it!

This is what I was expecting to happen today:

Actually, this did happen in Korea...just not in Seoul.

According to Bloomberg, Seoul got lashed, but it must have been in some other neighborhood. The financial district seems to have made out just fine. As I told Mike, commerce will protect us!

Oh yeah, I live in Asia...

... Sometimes I actually forget that I live in Asia...2,000 miles away from all the weather patterns and germs and hazards that are known to me. Seoul often doesn't seem *that* different, or maybe I'm just used to it now, and I forget that certain things are totally different here.
Like...typhoons.
I have read about typhoons, and seen videos, but I didn't really think it was something that affected Korea. Korea, or at least Seoul, seems so protected from other "common" Asian events...as if the skyscrapers and subways and giant outdoor flatscreens act as a wall against natural disasters.
But, a typhoon is coming. I'm not sure what exactly this entails...I had a story book once with my older kids about a typhoon. In that story, a boy lost his parrot, but the parrot came back safely after the storm, and the boy did not seem that affected by the high winds...
As the rainy season just.won't.end,it seems fitting that there might as well be a tropical storm.

The storm is set to hit on Thursday...though it's already (or still, depending how you look at it) raining. Being Korea, they probably won't call off school...but oh well. I'm oddly excited to be living in a country that gets hit by typhoons...I feel like it will be a great conversation starter someday...

A full story can be found here: Typhoon Kompasu Heading Towards Seoul