oh baby, it's cold outside

it's freaking freezing in korea. and when it's cold in korea, you eat jjigae, or stew, to keep warm. above, a hot bowl of kimchi jjigae served in a stone hot pot will warm you up (and clear your sinuses).

while we experienced a cold snap several weeks ago that lasted 2-3 days, potentially due to neighbouring china's cloud-seeding overdose (and their subsequent early-november blizzard), the frigid temperatures quickly passed, autumn returned, and i danced a figurative dance of joy that i didn't need to invest in a winter coat yet.

well, i spoke (or, danced) too soon. winter seems to be here; seoul's currently got lower temperatures than toronto. whaaat ... NO. this does little for my we've-escaped-the-shitty-canadian-climate gloating. for the record, it's currently -3°C in the greater seoul area.

and while i thoroughly enjoy the ondol heating that warms our apartment, the heat at school is another story. our boss finally gave us the heads up the other week that the "warm wind" was now available for the individual heating+air conditioning combo in our classrooms, and we obviously suppressed giggles at his inadvertent fart joke. why the building is designed in the opposite fashion of the very-effective-and-ubiquitous system of this country is beyond me. never mind that it's a challenge enough to get my students to refrain from opening the windows (and hanging out of them) or turning the thermostat dial in the classroom at their leisure (to which my protests of "teacher only!" are futile), but the heating units are in the ceiling ... and heat rises ... and ...

...

so most of my students are wearing their coats in class. and while the room eventually reaches a nice degree of cozy, you open the door to the hallway and meet a cold blast of frigid air, as the halls are unheated. oh, and all the windows are open in the stairwell. and bathrooms. and walking from my classroom to the teachers' office is sort of like travelling through siberia. i am confused at the theory behind all this. wouldn't it make more sense to heat the entire building?

regardless, winter has apparently arrived in this part of the world, and i suppose it's time to get used to it. i even gave in and went shopping for a coat. time to wear it, in class (while eating jjigae).