New Students and You Want to Put a Washing Machine WHERE?

I started working with two new students this week. I'm tutoring a high school boy for two hours every weekday for the next month. He's preparing his university entrance exams, which are a huge deal here in Korea. Think SAT/ACT/AP times a zillion. That's the kind of pressure Korean high school students are under to get good test scores. I'm especially helping him prepare for the writing portion of the exams.

I'm also tutoring an 11-year-old girl for the next three weeks. Her mother is Korean, and her father is German. Although she's only been studying English for 18 months, she's a near-native English speaker. She also speaks German, Korean, and French. The lessons I'm doing with her are essentially what kids her age are doing in American schools. Today we had a geography lesson on Asia, specifically China. The only time she stumbled using English was when she was trying to come up with the word "parade" to describe the Chinese New Year.

So this week I've met two absolutely incredible, intelligent, not to mention polite and personable, kids! I'm hoping their motivation wears off on me enough to get me back to school one of these days! Like the members of the Galena UMC youth group, these kids give me great hope for the world.

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I don't have a washing machine, and Korea doesn't have laundromats. I've been washing socks, undies, and a few other things by hand, and the directors of my school have been taking my dirty laundry home with them once a week. I think they must be getting tired of it because they've started talking about purchasing a washing machine for me. Great idea! It feels WEIRD giving my dirty laundry to boss, but the question looms:

WHERE DO I PUT IT?!

It turns out that the only place it can go, since it has to have both a water source and a drain, is in the bathroom. And the only place that has enough space in the bathroom is under the showerhead. There is no shower stall, just a small tile bathroom with a showerhead coming out of one wall, which results in the entire bathroom being soaked whenever I take a shower.

The receptionist at my school was telling me this plan, that they were going to purchase a washing machine and put it under the shower in my very small bathroom.

"There isn't room," I argued.

"Yes! I think here is okay!" And she drew a map of my bathroom and pointed to the only empty spot of floor, directly under the shower head.

EMH: "I won't have room to take shower." (Translation: "I don't like this idea.")

RECEPTIONIST: "I think washing machine moving is okay!" (Translation: "You can simply move your washing machine when you take a shower. Just get inside the bathroom, close the door, push the washing machine against it, blocking you inside, so you have 2 square feet to stand in to take a shower. It's all okay!")

E: "It'll get soaked every time I take a shower." (Translation: "I really don't like this idea.")

R: "Washing machine wet is okay!" (Translation: "The washing machine can get wet. It's all okay!")

E: "There's no outlet on that wall. I'll have to run a cord across my bathroom." (Translation: "I don't like this idea, and I'm a little worried about the potential water-electricity hazard and don't really want a cord running from one corner of my bathroom to the other.")

R: "I think you not using unplug is okay!" (Translation: "Unplug it when you're not using it. It's all okay!")

E: "I'll have to climb over it to get to the sink." (Translation: "I really, really don't like this idea.")

R: "I think you and washing machine is HAPPY TOGETHER!" (Translation: "No matter how silly it sounds to you, I really want to put a washing machine in your tiny bathroom so you have to climb over it several times a day. You'll learn to love it. HAPPY TOGETHER!")

E: "IN THE SHOWER?" (Translation: "I can't even begin to explain how much I don't like this idea.")

At this point we both started laughing at the utter absurdity of being happy while sharing a shower with a washing machine.

There’s a dry cleaner/tailor in my building. I think we’re going to work something out to see if they can do a load of wash for me each week.

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It's still a little drizzly here, but the bad thunderstorms have stopped for now. I heard that in the past week over 50 people were killed or missing in the floods and landslides in South Korea and over 100 in North Korea. Over 1,000 had to be evacuated from their homes in South Korea. Everyday on the news they show people returning to homes and farmland that have been destroyed. Please continue to keep the people affected by the floods and landslides in your prayers.