Dear Korean Summers

It's been a long time since my last post, I know, and I'm sorry. Originally I intended to write a new post every week informing everyone of all my wacky, crazy, korean adventures. Sadly, while I have been having adventures, I haven't been writing about them. But I have a great excuse:

IT'S TOO HOT HERE!!!!!

I knew that Korean summers would be hot. I knew that Korean summers would be humid. I knew that Koreans apparently lack sweat glands and are therefore magically immune to this heat (I suspect some advanced form of technology that allows them to have a central air system installed inside their appendix; make that lazy organ work for it's place in the body!). I knew that being from Vermont I would die in the heat. Which is exactly what I've been doing for the last month and a half.

Air conditioning is fairly prevalent here, and I take full advantage of it. My apartment is kept nice and cold, and the first thing I do when I get to school in the morning is crank up the air-con in my teaching room. The issue is outside. There is no air conditioning outside. It's something I really think the government should look into. What I appreciate most about my air-con is not so much the blessed coldness which eminates like a dream from within its wintery depths (although that is very nice as well) but is the fact that it also acts as a de-humidifier. That's the big issue here in Korea, is the humidity. Step outside the safety of an airconditioned room, and you might as well be stepping into a sauna. When the air is practically sweating, what do you think that means for your body?!

Koreans merely glisten in this unbearable, smothering weather, with the occasional singular bead of shimmering sweat sliding subtley down their neck. I, on the other hand, take one step outside and suddenly look as if every pore on my body were violently protesting such a heinous action by crying tears of unbearable pain. By the time I get to school I look like I've fought my way through a torrential downpour in order to make it there. Sweat runs in rivers down my face, slides nastily along my spine, and even drips in trickling drops from the bend in my elbow where my purse straps sit. I have actually started leaving for school half an hour early, not because it's any cooler that early in the morning, but because I need the extra half hour to sit in my airconditioned room and stop sweating before I get up in front of 40 kids to teach. If anyone of the students ever saw what I really look like when I get to school, I don't think any would dare to come to my classes.

All this heat creates an unbearable lethargy, as all my energy is spent excreting water from my pores. This has lead to an incredibly unproductive month, as I am exhausted by the time I get back to my apartment at the end of the day, not because of the actual work involved in teaching, but because of the 20 minute walk from school to my apartment in the blazing heat of the Korean afternoon. All I have energy to do at the end of the day is blast on my airconditioning and lay prone beneath it, feeling like nothing more than a puddle on the floor waiting to dry.

They say it's one of the hottest Korean summers on record. Lucky me. They say it's starting to get colder. I say not cold enough and certainly not soon enough.

So that is my excuse, which is lame I know. I am attempting to finally pull myself out of my lethargic state and be more productive. Step one, write more in my blog. I actually do have much more interesting things to write, and I promise that in the coming weeks I will write all about them.

Promise...