At school yesterday, while working on materials for my upcoming winter camps, the phone at my cubicle rang. Usually I don't answer it because 99.9% of the time the caller doesn't speak English and they are calling for another teacher in the office. Given that I was, and still am, the only teacher in my office required to be working this week, I took a chance and picked it up. It was my vice-principal.
"Hello, this is Mr. Lee, vice-principal of Sangwon Middle School in the main office (this is how he starts every phone conversation). Please come downstairs. The photo man is here to take your picture for the book."
The book?!? I'm already confused, so I say...."I'm sorry?"
Which prompts the common miscommunication that I didn't hear versus the fact I have no clue what he is talking about.
He repeats, louder, "PLEASE COME DOWNSTAIRS! THE PHOTO MAN IS HERE TO TAKE YOUR PICTURE FOR THE BOOK!"
Still not understanding, but already exhausted from the conversation, I decide to head down stairs to the main office to find out what's happening. I am promptly greeted by Cynthia, one of my co-teachers, mirror in hand. While looking me up and down, she smiles and tells me that the school photographer is here to take my picture for the yearbook since he lost my first one.
I love when these things are sprung on me.
"Maybe...you brush your hair? Maybe?" is the first of many helpful suggestions.
I do my best to tidy and pin my hair without having access to a hairbrush.
"Maybe your skin is tired. You are sick, very white."
I do my best to rub some color into my cheeks.
"Maybe you like some lipstick?" she says as she rummages in her pocket and pulls out a tube.
Cynthia, you're wearing opalescent mauve lipstick, I think I'll pass. "No, thank you" I politely respond and wipe off any coffee film there may be on my mouth with the back of my sleeve. Only one thought keeps running through my head in the most sarcastic of tones: This is going to be awesome...
Because school is over for the students, and I am not teaching classes this week, I have chosen to wear clothes that are comfortable and most importantly, will keep me warm. On this particular day, the thermostat in my office reads 30 but I am still wearing long underwear, jeans, a thermal shirt, wool sweater, fleece and Columbia jacket while working. I am convinced the thermostat and heating system is the only electronic in Korea that functions in Fahrenheit, because there is no way the office is 30 Celcius. With all those layers, I am just on the cool-side of comfortable and my nose is a permanent shade of Rudolph-red. Combine this with the fact that winter is ridiculously dry so I have chosen to alternate hair washing days in an effort to make it less hay-like, and this particular photo day falling on a non-washing day, you can see where this story is heading, if you couldn't already.
Cynthia finally gives up on making me presentable, so she speaks to the photographer and lets me know that we will be taking the picture outside. Outside, where it is below zero and I am forced to de-layer down to my sweater, I shiver my way through 4 photos. Back inside, the photographer presents them to Cynthia and I to make a choice which one should be in the yearbook. I look over Cynthia's shoulder and immediately want to cry. They are all (surprisingly) terrible. We select the lesser of four evils and the photographer is on his way.
When the yearbook comes out, I anticipate a flood of phone calls from parents who, when looking at their child's yearbook to survey the foreign English teacher, comes upon a person who cannot keep their eyes open (I was sick and I had a sunbeam in my eye), has blotchy flushed skin (from trying to rub color in to their cheeks) and their nose has turned a shade of red usually reserved for cartoon characters and thus resembles someone blindly drunk.
I pray the photographer has a brilliant editing program.
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Recently Updated...03.25 - Two posts! About Me...Out and about in the world, teaching others and educating myself. Stuff I Like...Traveling. Cuddling a cat. New toothbrushes. Friends. Socks of the Joanne Younes variety. The smell of sun-dried laundry. Baking. Archives
March 2008
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