conquering the thermostat...among other things

I don't do well with being cold. My fingers turn blue, my mind shuts down and I am not necessarily the most pleasant person to be around. This doesn't mean that I don't like winter. I love frosty mornings and crunching snow, just as long as I have access to a warm coat, gloves, a scarf and an occasional warm beverage. Ergo, when my classroom heater started producing a lot of cold air, I started worrying. At first the thermostat was very simple to use. There is a big number with a degree sign that goes up when I push the appropriate arrow and the air flow follows suit. But then, all I started getting was cold air...and lots of it. I think one of my students punched a bunch of buttons while I was out of the room and changed the settings. "That's okay. I will just get my handy-dandy cell phone dictionary and figure out which of these settings is heat." Or not. The words on the thermostat did not correspond with what was in my dictionary. Plan B: push a button and see what happens. Forty-five minutes later, after multiple trips up and down a stool to feel the air coming from the AC unit I successfully had sufficiently warm air to heat my classroom! Success! Welcome to my life as an English teacher in Korea.