Kimchi, not for me

First of all, did I ever have curly hair before? It's been a super long time since my hair was long enough to tell...it flips out perfectly now...but it's generally straight - though I just now realized that's because I blow-dry it. Tonight it was raining, and I to run some errands, and the humidity made me hair curl up a LOT...not just wavy, but curly. Weird.

Second, one of my kids FREAKED out in class today. He pinched me while I was trying to tell him to stop talking. And seeing as how Koreans don't celebrate St. Patrick's day, I figure it wasn't because I wasn't wearing green. So I asked him to stand up and walk with me to the office. He stood up, walked like two steps and then went a bit berserk. He started crying, half-shouting, went limp, I tried to catch him, he started grabbing me anywhere he could, punching me, pinching me, grabbing me....it was NOT pretty. I won't even explain the rest because it's beyond ridiculous and I get angry just thinking about it. I went and got the Korean teacher to help me, but he's sitting down crying, and all the rest of the students are freaked out (as am I!) and everyone starts talking in Korean, and I suddenly become hyper aware of the fact that I'm probably going to get fired over this. They take student and parent complaints super seriously here...and even though I was entirely confident that I had done NOTHING wrong, it was one of those times where the language barrier works against you. The Korean teachers basically coddled said evil and rebellious child (major pet peeve: lack of discipline in Korea - these kids whine EVERYTHING - and I'm not exaggerating at all). Whatever, Ms. Lee (my boss) stayed in my class pretty much the rest of the time, and everyone was profoundly uncomfortable. I was so mad, upset, and freaked out that I was shaking. After class I gave Jason (thank God he was at work today), Jenny (a Korean teacher), and Kylie and Donovan a run-down of what happened, and they were able to run interference for me and explain what happened.

So tomorrow night all the office is going out to a norebang (Karaoke bar). Call me pessimistic, but I'm expecting it to be a total disaster bordering on utter humiliation. All I know is that the only way I'm singing is if my job is threatened, and I doubt they would go to those lengths. I'll let you know how it goes though. I do know this much though - there will be drinking, and there will be music. Does that strike anyone else as THE perfect recipie for an awkward Monday morning?

PS - Decided against cutting my hair, for all of you who are so kind as to pretend to care. I get small glimpses here and there of how conservative this culture is, and I think it would only hurt me more. Frankly, I need everything going for me possible.