A couple classmates (including this correspondent) have been feeling under the weather as of late: without appetite, slightly nauseous, fatigued. (I'm actually feeling better, though, thanks.) Today our speaking teacher explained why Koreans blame this sort of seemingly reasonless illness on spring.

Koreans believe that of the four seasons, people are more likely to be tired in spring and energetic in the fall. This is based on a zero-sum view of energy supply: there is a limited amount of energy in the world, shared between people, animals and plants, and if one needs more energy at a given time, the others will feel de-energized. In the spring, because plants need extra energy to wake up, bud, blossom, and do other sorts of bloomy things, people feel tired, because the energy portion that would usually be theirs is being used by the plants and trees.

However, humans get their revenge (mwah hah hah hah!) in the fall, when we eat the fruits of the trees and plants, and get our energy back.

I knew there was a reason why I like autumn and hate spring!

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On Friday night, my classmates from last quarter met up at Adrian's apartment to say goodbye to Harue, the kindergarten teacher who's going back to Japan this week. Adrian was in our class last quarter, but started work right after it ended.

Adrian works for the Singaporean embassy here, and is thus set up in Da House. (Or Da Apartment, if you insist on being specific.) He lives in a high-rise serviced residence in Insadong, which means he basically lives in a hotel in one of the nicest parts of town. So: spacious, three bedroom apartment, nice hardwood floors, beautiful view, in-house drycleaning, health club, sauna, pool, billiards table, and.... FOOZBALL!!!

I'm not an ardent Foozball player by ANY means, but the sight of the familiar game was strangely like seeing a friend.

Before meeting up at the apartment, we gathered at the closest metro station, and met our teacher's new boyfriend. Woo woo!

All last quarter our teacher constantly joked about the fact that she didn't have a boyfriend, so we were quite excited for her. He lived in Argentina for several years when his family moved there, and so answers to the name "Miguel" and prefers using a fork to chopsticks. They were -- get this -- introduced by a nun who attends the language school!

Apparently, because he attends Catholic University, he knows quite a few nuns and priests, and so the nuns showed him a picture of our teacher and he found her agreeable, and asked our teacher if she'd mind meeting him, and she didn't, and they've been together for a month now.

Woo woo!

While we waited for Adrian to get home, we picked up some chicken wings and other party food, which we piled into when we got to his place. We ordered pizza too, and I must say that it tastes pretty much like the Pizza Hut back home. Mmmm. Cheesy.

During the party, for some reason, Adrian's wedding album came out and toured the group. Now wedding albums are normally pretty funny, what with the posed pictures and airbrushing, but this one was freakin' hilarious. There was a really great photo of Adrian in a black suit against a red backdrop, hands in pocket, feet apart, and a shit-eating grin on his face. He looks like he was posing for a CD cover or something.

There was also one of his wife, impeccably and beautifully dressed in her wedding gown, inexplicably climbing a column.

Adrian is quite good-natured, so he didn't mind the laughter, and agreed that most of the poses were rather ridiculous. But you could see that he adores his wife.

When Father Njoroje, the priest from Kenya, was looking at the album, he unwittingly created even more hilarity, because he accidentally dropped some ice cream on a corner of a photo, and I quickly wiped it off, telling him to be careful. But the man was not content with simply turning the pages of the album -- for some reason, he felt the need to put his whole hand on the photos! So this exchange ensued:

Me: "No, you shouldn't touch photos like that, it'll damage the paper...."

Father Njoroje: "No, no, it's special photo paper, it's okay" (while rubbing his fingers over the photo to demonstrate)

Me (laughing): "That's even more reason to not touch it!"

Harue started laughing hysterically -- like, crouched on the floor, can't get up laughter -- because the more I tried to tell him that you shouldn't touch photos like that, the more he did it, first innocently and then insisting that it wouldn't be harmed if he touched it. Eventually I backed away from the good Father and the album, afraid I was going to drool on it because I was laughing so hard.

It was all awfully fun, and we all seemed to know enough Korean to have a good time for several hours, and we were very sad at the end because Harue is one of those good, sweet people who can really pull everyone together, because everyone likes her. Today she came to school to say goodbye for the last time and to give us all copies of pictures from that night.

I'm going to try and visit her in Japan if I can.