Snow Day

It was a Sunday night and at about 2:00 am Andrew went to our "laundry room" to put something out there. He saw it was snowing so we decided to go have some fun in the snow in our pajamas. Of course I brought my camera along.

The next day Andrew went to work two hours early, because we started teaching special winter classes. I didn't have an early class so I slept in. I was just about to jump in the shower when he came back. He had dunkin donuts in hand and said that school was cancelled. I looked outside and there was about a foot of snow on the ground. This country doesn't know how to handle their snow!

Later in the day we went out to get some pizza. I haven't seen one person in Korea with a shovel or a plow. They use home-made stick brooms, cardboard, buckets, and ice chisels. A friend who used to live in Korea said she saw people using a hose to get ride of snow. What a nice idea... that makes a perfect blanket of ice! On the main roads we saw a few construction diggers picking up snow. Are you kidding me? No wonder they had to cancel school!

The next day at work one of my co-workers tried having a conversation with me. I say tried because her English is not very good. I can tell it has improved since we started, but maybe she is just getting more confident talking to us. She is one of the front desk workers, and is really cute. She tried telling Howard so he could translate for her. He said he wouldn't translate and she had to try.

"Hm. Where are from?"

"Near Chicago. North of Chicago." (People understand that much better than Wisconsin)

"Hm. You snow?"

"Yes. Much more. Many many many many. And much colder than Korea."

"Ah. hm. Korea... one hundred.... three... years... hm. First time I see... hm. OKAY!"

Apparently it does snow here, but not that much at one time. That was the first time in 103 years that it snowed that much and they had to cancel school. We also had a nice little treat when returning to work. There was no heat. If I had known, I wouldn't have worn a short sleeved dress.

The kids were freezing, and so were the teachers. Everyone was wearing their coats. I tried writing on the board while wearing gloves. (note: that doesn't work). The repairman said he couldn't come until the next day to fix it.

Well the next day came, and the next day went. The repair man had come, but he said he couldn't fix it until sometime maybe next week. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

I was bringing mugs of hot water with me to class so I could hold it to keep my fingers from being numb. At one point I set down my mug to write on the board. I turned back around and one of my students had her fingers cupped around my mug so she could warm up. I had my classes doing jumping jacks, group hugs, and I went around the room with my warmer hands trying to warm theirs up. It was ridiculous.

Luckily, we only had two days of no heat before one of our co-workers got mad enough that he went out and fixed the problem himself.

The following pictures are all of us playing in the snow at 2 am in our pajamas.