what happened the night of February 27

Here are some pics of the food prep I did on the night of February 27 (a Wednesday) all the way through the following morning.

I made a ton of food because some teachers had also requested some eats. The students all had second helpings of everything (except for the hors d'oeuvres I served to my 1:30PM Intensive English class; I had made just enough for one serving each), and we still had leftovers. It wasn't until the teachers swooped in later that evening that the leftovers finally became more manageable. All in all, the whole thing went quite well.

So-- enjoy these pics. More images of the actual jjong-parties will be up tomorrow or the day after.

I didn't get the Intensive English finals graded until Thursday afternoon (the 28th). As things turned out, I was up for about 40 hours, from 8AM Wednesday morning onward. On Wednesday, I had the CNN jjong-party followed by three final exams; I went shopping for the next day's jjong-party, and that took several hours (Hannam and Lotte Mart; no Costco, which is why I didn't have those mega-scallops). I got home and began food prep, which ended up lasting through the night. Much of the prep never made it onto digital film, especially the preparation of the spaghetti bolognese for the third class. Good Lord, that took most of my time, and it was probably after 5AM when I finally started on that.

So that brings us up to Thursday morning. Because there was no CNN class, I had an extra hour to prepare. I finalized prep, shat, shaved, and showered, got my two Costco bags of food and pots and utensils together, and lumbered sweatily over to campus. I then spent two hours serving food to my two morning classes, and went back home to grab the food for the afternoon class. I took my time during that class (it was three hours long), and the students definitely enjoyed the food, which was a relief. Luckily, the students helped me by washing the dishes (they had also brought Baskin Robbins ice cream!), but I knew I'd be dirtying everything up again that same evening. After class left at 4:30, I graded papers (barely awake while doing so-- shhhhhh, don't tell the students), entered scores into the computer, then prepped for the arrival of the teachers, who ended up gobbling huge portions of the spaghetti sauce and the remaining salad. Luckily, the ladies were kind enough to offer to wash the dishes; I gladly said "yes." This brought us to about 9PM on Thursday evening.

For whatever reason, I hung around the school after that, just allowing myself to sag with fatigue while watching a few Season 3 episodes of "Battlestar Galactica" off my illegal DVD (thanks, Tom).

I've heard it from several of my colleagues, now: "The students don't appreciate all this effort." That may be; some of them probably are pretty self-absorbed (making them no different from the American high schoolers I taught in the early 1990s), but I think many of those students do come away remembering the experience. I cook for them because I like cooking, and because I sincerely do care for these kids. So even though it's hard work, and even though it may be thankless (insofar as no one pays me a million bucks to do this), I still enjoy what I do. It's my choice.

I left Smoo around 1AM and dropped into bed like a stone. All in all, it had been a 41-hour marathon.

_