10.26.2010

What is That Smell? Oh, Yeah.

The other day I called a student up to the front of the class. He hopped up and screeched to a halt right next me. The floors are wood in the classroom and his socks (Koreans do not wear shoes indoors) allowed for a very smooth standing slide-and-stop right next to me.

He had a great running start, perfect power stance on the slide, his eyes were focused and he stopped on the exact spot I wanted him to. But just as his Tom Cruise "Risky Business" sock slide came to a halt, his face went pale, his body stiffened and he looked straight at me.

Then it happened.

Half a second after he looked up, he let out a fart. Not a big one. Not big enough for the class to hear but definitely big enough for me to hear and he knew it. He then did what most kindergartners would do...giggled.

I played teacher and pretended nothing happened but I could not get over the fact that it oh-so-gently and slowly wafted directly into my nose for the full 45-seconds he stood next me reading.

The weird part? The smell did not bother me. I was used to it.

You see, in most schools in Korea, the students and staff eat the exact same thing for lunch. And in those 45-seconds of fart filtering into my nose, I realized that if everyone eats the same things, everyone farts the same thing too. This equation creates a subtle undertone of fart throughout the afternoon everyday.

I am not sure how I feel about this. It's weird, yet OK. But it does make me question how much of that fart cloud is teacher produced. I guess we will never know.


...get Lost my friends.

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