the story of an American Ben in a Korean High School in China

These are some pictures of my daily life teaching at a Korean High School. Blogger is doing some strange things of late, when I try to post pictures and move them around or add captions, so I'll just try and summarize up front. The first pictures are of the entrance to the school where I work, along with some of its signs. There's a bust of someone to the right as you walk in. I'm not sure who this is. Does anyone know? Basically, the bust of this bearded guy is the only other Western-looking face I see in Tianjin during most of my days. I've become affectionate towards him. It think it might be Plato or Socrates. Later in the group of photos are a couple of pictures of my co-teachers. I would consider these people to be my friends. Casey, the woman wearing yellow, is another English teacher. She moved to China a couple of weeks ago, just like me, from Korea. The rest of the teachers don't speak English or Chinese, and I don't speak Chinese or Korean, but we all eat lunch together, and make jokes, look exhausted, or roll our eyes at similar things. We take turns buying juice boxes for each other. We let people jump in line at the copy machine. We share the instant coffee and take turns buying it when it runs out. These past few weeks have taught me that actually being able to speak to someone is highly overrated, in terms of forming a friendship.

One note: click on the photos to see larger versions of the images