Skin problems

Things are going well here. I'm starting to settle into a crappy split-shift schedule. At least it keeps me from going out every night. I'm up at 5:30 in the morning. I teach from 7-12 then go home for a nap and lunch. I come back at 5 pm and teach til 8, then head back home for dinner and a shower. I hit the sack and read for awhile, trying to be asleep by 11 so I can get at least 6 hours of rest. It kinda sucks right now but once I join a gym I think it'll get better. At least I'll have something to do in the afternoons then. As it is, my afternoons are pretty boring and I end up taking long naps, which interfere with my nighttime sleep schedule.
My coworkers are great, and my students are fantastic. I love my classes, and just like in KY and IN, end up spending a lot of classtime laughing my head off at the crazy stuff that students come up with. One day a really homely-looking student said something that had me rolling for several minutes. Each student had to think of a product and describe the way it looks, tastes, smells, etc. Then the others had to try to figure out what the product was based on the information provided. When it was her turn, the shy, homely girl said, "It smells like beer. It smells disgusting. And it tastes disgusting." Another student asked, "Is it a drink?" "No," she replied. Another asked, "Is it food?" "No," she says. The other student said, "But you said it tastes disgusting...have you ever eaten it?" Homely girl responds, "Yes. Once. A long time ago." The student then asked, "Is it...pee?" Homely girl: "Yes." Oh my god, I laughed sooooo hard. That same girl is obsessed with bowel movements too. She's always talking about constipation. When asked to give an example of somthing that makes their skin crawl, she cited the example of when she's constipated. I don't think she quite grasps that idiom yet...or maybe she does perfectly. Once they had to talk about the advantages and disadvantages of alternative lifestyles, like treehouse life. Homely girl was quick to point out that treehouse living could cause constipation due to sketchy toilets in trees. That's the kind of student that makes my job worthwhile.

The other night I went walking around my neighborhood in hopes that I'd wear myself out before my 11:00 bedtime. I stopped into a cosmetics store just to have a look around, and came across one of the saddest things I've seen in Korea. The brand 'Nuk' (the same company that makes baby pacifiers) has a Baby Whitening Powder Compact. If you think racism is bad in the U.S., come to Korea, where they apply sunscreen not to combat skin cancer but to make sure they don't get brown. The skin-whitening industry is a lucrative business here, and you wouldn't believe the amount of powder the women cake onto their faces trying to look more white.