Slow day

Not very hungover, but hungover. Can't say I enjoyed today at all but perhaps that was the price I had to pay for last nights dinner with co-workers and drinks afterwards. I got back home at around 4am, I think. Drinking a deadly mix of Korean beers and Soju left me nursing a small headache, dodgy stomach and a lethargic body. I hate soju AND Korean lager so why I drank both last night I can't quite explain. I deserve my hangover for putting those two foul, alleged drinks into my bloodstream. Korean beer is the worst in the world. No exaggeration. Soju has all the taste of nail varnish.

Work dragged today. Predictably, but I tried to make the best of things. Being a bit more relaxed (tired) led me to enjoying class even more than I usually do. I seemed to have a lot more conversations with the students who by and large were funnier than usual. One of my more rambunctious classes were up to their old tricks. Acting stupidly, being noisy and leaving me dumbfounded at how some of them ended up at such a high level despite not being able to understand English so well. Random quote from one of the bigger, 'individualistic' boys to his friend next to him, when they were play fighting "Don't do gay. Don't be gay!" I couldn't help but laugh as he corrected his sentence. Maybe it doesn't read as funny as it was at the time. You had to be there I guess.


Above. Me hungover, letting the students use my camera to take as bad a photo as they could manage.

Mr Hangover: Recovery, Korean style

Today I find myself suffering from a good nights drinking with some good people. Headache, bit of stomachache and general lethargy from last nights booze. Back home I would probably just go through the pain barrier and hope that the day passes quickly. Also I'd eat some greasy food like a bacon sandwich or something comforting like a curry. Out here I can't quite get the food I want to aid my recuperation so I have to think of something else.

Getting my hands on some Lucozade would probably do the trick but alas that's not an option out here in Korea either so I need a different pain reliever. I do not like taking any form of medicine but out here I choose to go down that route. A quick trip to the pharmacist and I got hold of some liquid that didn't taste too bad and two pills. Medicine here is cheap, around £1.75 for this hangover cure. It seems to be working. Adiós Mr Hangover, see you next time.

Driven to drink

I write this (2am Korean time) still hungover from last nights drink, where I got home after 5am. I needed a drink or two after the day I'd had at work and in particular one student who really effected my day. One boy cheated on his test. No big deal I suppose and I certainly didn't make a big scene out of it. I didn't shout at him, criticise him or make him look foolish in front of the other students. I just said that I have to discuss it with my partner teacher and see what happens, because there was suspicious writing on his desk.


Predictably he denied it, though far too quickly for my liking because he seemed to know what I was looking at before I even suggested that the writing on his desk may be cheating. Before the test was over the water works and amateur dramatics were well in action. I'm talking straight out bawling - for nearly thirty minutes. By the way, he has previous on this front and thankfully I am now immune to this trick. Whether he was crying because he would be punished, because he was found out OR more likely that he thought this would make me forgive the cheating I'm still not so sure. Because of the theatrics the class was wrecked. The student at one point glared at me venomously as if he would stab me given the chance. This was just the worst thing he could have done because that sealed it for me - there was no chance he was going to get away with it from there on.


He continued his denial with my Korean partner teacher even when presented with all the damning evidence (there was no way anybody else could have put the writing on his desk before his class). I am told that during a later class he admitted cheating. Things like this shouldn't effect me but they sometimes do. It's not the cheating that bothered me, it's the lying to me and the denial and accusing me of lying about his cheating and of course there will be no apology from him to me. I am just the foreign 'teacher', someone that doesn't count out here. Anyway, I enjoyed my drinks if not today's hangover.