Kum Ba Yah

On Monday night, the English class that I typically teach to a group of employees at my companies Southern Branch Office was canceled. Unfortunately, through a series of mis/failed communications, I was not informed of this fact until I actually arrived at the branch office. I walked into the classroom in which I typically teach to find one of the students sitting at the conference table studying. Only he wasn't studying English. He was studying for some type of regulatory laws exam that all of the company employees (except me, of course) are taking this week. Although he can hardly speak a complete sentence of intelligible English, I understood quickly through the ubiquitous Korean sign for "No" (forming an "x" with your hands) that there would be no class.

So I quickly turned around and got right back on a bus for home in order to minimize my losses. Although I had indeed gotten on the correct bus, it was not at the right point in its circuit to take me quickly (that means 30-40 minutes in the city) back home. After realizing this fact 30 minutes later, I got off the bus and jumped into a taxi. As the taxi driver and I sat in the bumper-to-bumper traffic, taking in the glorious cityscape (construction, trash, and high rise mounds of concrete), and enjoying the smells of diesel exhaust and unwashed humanity (the taxi driver was not the most hygenic I have had), the sweet sounds of "Kum Ba Yah" come drifting dreamily through the radio. What a truly transcendental experience!