I keep craving coleslaw. It's not like I'm not getting enough cabbage – my two daily doses of kimchi, and all that. Fortunately, ingredients for passable coleslaw are easy to come by – unlike some things I crave, like Mexican food, which have ingredients that are downright impossible to come by.
So I made some coleslaw. You know, chopped cabbage, carrots… I like to add some chopped apple, for the tart sweetness, and maybe some raisins. I have some "coleslaw dressing" which is basically something mayonnaise-like that Koreans apparently use. But I also have some horseradish sauce, which gives a nice flavor. And a shake of vinegar. My only peculiar innovation: I add some "drinking yogurt" (which is always sweetened and flavored in its Korean variety – but that sweetness can be a nice offset in the coleslaw, I guess). It's pretty good.
Yesterday was a strange day at work. I had no classes – the third grade was doing some special book-report-festival (is it possible to have a book report festival?). But I ended up extremely busy, since Ms Ryu asked me to do practice JET speaking tests. Fortunately, I was prepared and experienced in doing such a thing, so it went quite smoothly, and I spent the day asking high-end students questions and scoring the competence of their answers.
Then, in the afternoon, we were working hard to meet more of the vice principal's arbitrary demands for making our new classroom adequate to his expectations – putting military-style (meaning very very very dull and uniform) labels on everything, and making sure nothing in the room looks too personalized or fun – god forbid our new, high-tech classroom looking like a warm, welcoming place.
So I tried to put myself into an army mindset and just line everything up… pretending, in my mind, that some high-level colonel was going to come a-inspectin'. Probably, this isn't far from the truth – the power plant bigwigs that are paying for all this remodelling are bound to come around at some point, soon, to see how the school's spending their money. And they're nuclear power plant officials – they're going to like seeing lots of sterile uniformity – it will match their expectations for order and good design. So, actually, I have some small sympathy for the vice principal's position. But that doesn't mean he needs to be so… inhumane.