Last night, it was snowing. Or sleeting. Or freezing raining. Something like that. A blustery, damp, wind-driven, granular sort of snow. And it didn't really stick.
Today, there are patches of white, but the sky is thickly hazy, yet it's quite windy. A western wind, it seems like. That's a spring pattern, here, a deviation from the north wind (bitterly cold) or south wind (warmer but wet) that normally seem to alternate in winter. And yet it's quite cold, which means that it doesn't FEEL springlike – it feels like Minneapolis, this time of year, with the winds having whipped up across the plains.
That haze is the famous Chinese pall, I'd be willing to bet. The Mongolian desert sands, from a 1000 km to the west, saturated with some juicy Chinese industrial wastes. A bit early in the year for that, but the direction of the winds, and the color of the sky, make me suspicious.
Walking to work, these days, it's almost inevitable that I run in to some students, former or current. I feel like a Mr Rogers, strolling like a conspicuous alien through his Ilsan neighborhood. Putting on my teacher "happy face" despite the occasional turmoil inside.
"Hi Kevin!" "Hi, Annie, how are you?" "Hello, Joseph. Don't forget you have a test tonight." And I get those weird, disorienting bows that kids give to adults in public places (but that are utterly absent from the inside-the-hagwon environment, which I suppose is a tribute to the hagwon's efforts to instill a more "Western" atmosphere).
Soundtrack:
Beastie Boys
임형주 (that 행복하길바래 song I like)
Radiohead
Madonna
Spagga y La Raza (Nueva York)
PM Dawn