Why I Don't Meditate

I sat in the early pre-dawn stillness, feeling the cold wind blow softly on my face. As I listened, I could almost hear the earth speaking to me. It spoke directly to the yearnings of my soul, asking me "Would you like a can of Big Franks?"

Yes, yes I would. I would like them placed, still sizzling, on a bun with a little ranch dressing, with some finely diced jalapeños and cilantro.

And you know what? The crazy thing is that I can get all those things here. Yes, even here, at the center of what was once Chinghis Khan's empire, I can get some fresh cilantro, jalapenos, dressing and buns. The big franks are a bit harder, but I brought two cans with me from the US. One is for Thanksgiving, the other is for Christmas.
There isn't much dietary deprivation though. I'm not craving anything. Well, that's not true. Right now I'm hungry, but that's just because a massive block of classes has forced me to move supper to around 4:00, so I get hungry before bed. What I'm craving is some rice and diced cabbage with tofu and a little mayo wrapped in a seaweed square and sliced into rounds... i.e. kimbap (or something like it). I'm definitely going to be making that stuff when I get back home, because I became addicted to it in Korea and THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE IT HERE!

So, about that massive block of classes. At the beginning of this term I was supposed to be teaching four classes a day, which is a light load. Somehow after the first day I've ended up with seven, which is insane.
On top of this, two of them are classes that I have to actually prepare for. I've stopped using the Korean curriculum for the junior class, because it was designed to be used by a Korean-speaking teacher with all Korean students. Instead, I'll be making 2-3 pages of grammar activities, puzzles and other such nonsense for the kids to do every day, in addition to copying the story book and writing quizzes (no tests).
The other class I have to prepare for is the Bible class. We are reading out of children's storybook series (thanks mom) to get concepts, then reading the original chapters / verses in the Bible. To prepare I have to read through the story in both places and anticipate what questions will arise, then find the verses that I will need to answer those questions. So far it's been fun though.
Teaching Sabbath school, in contrast, has been something akin to hell. Perhaps I need to prepare more, but I just get the feeling that I don't know my Bible well enough, and that I haven't the foggiest idea how to lead out in a discussion. The class always ends up being at one of two extremes, either I say everything and everyone else stares at me, or I say nothing and everyone else stares at me.

Wait... those aren't extremes... those are about the same.

Whenever someone else teaches people get involved, but I can't seem to get the knack for encouraging involvement like they do.

I suppose this has been a somewhat more normal blog post, in that it involved me writing about my boring life instead of attempting to write a semi-humorous story. Oh well. You just wasted five minutes reading, I just wasted 15 minutes writing.

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