Where's South Korea At?

You got to be kidding me? The Republic of Korea? You googled it and you can't find it, really? This is the conversation I just had the liberty of having with a Bank of America employee while trying to alert them to my travels in a few days. Then should could not understand WHY I wanted to SPEAK to someone else.

More geography lessons needed, a friend is concerned that I may have improperly packed for this trip and reminded me that it is winter in Korea. Last time I checked (last night) it was 90 degrees and humid in Ulsan with no significant change predicted for the next 10 days. Its OK, I did appreciate the thought.

This morning I commented on Walk a Mile. Beth had posted about life choices, being a teacher vs a stay at home mom. This got me thinking about the negative response I often witness from parents who are dismayed at the fact that their kids want to be teachers. I am amazed at how education is downplayed as a viable career. What is wrong with being a teacher? When you go buy a house your first concern after price is the school district. When you send you kids to school you want them to be in a competitive and progressive learning environment.

Its a job where we are sleep deprived and work 24/7 for 10 months out of the year before slowing to a relatively normal pace in the summer. Maybe the dismay is because teachers generally get paid too little for the level of education needed and the time spent on task?

Clearly, this morning demonstrated that I the person I needed to speak to was not the savvy INTERNATIONAL BANKER she trained to be and I have no doubt she was AMERICAN because most other nations blow us away in education. Geography is SIMPLE! Everyone should know the 7 continents, where the stable countries are (by stable I mean the ones who have not changed names in the past 50 years), if they are American then the 50 states of the country they live in as well as the capitals of those states. By the way, in case you didn't know it, Toronto is not a small country in the South Pacific and Oklahoma is not in Canada...Doesn't anyone LOOK at a WORLD MAP anymore? We seem to be this global society that has no idea what that means!

Just to appease my followers this is the link to Nat Geo! I encourage you to look, to learn , to wonder, to fantasize about visiting... Go for it, maps are beautiful pieces of artwork within themselves.