of the bull

deery-lou.
it's the end of yet another month which meant birthday time at school. we had one birthday boy for the month, brian. the day included singing, eating cake, and playing games. once again the children were hopped up on sugar and ran around like crazy. parties always seem much longer than normal days. i had to stop a few children from eating too much cake. they were overdosing on sugar icing.

esther & me

happy jason

jazz hands

on a different note, i've decided to bid farewell to korea on september 1. yes, i will be returning to home. its been a great three years living here but this past year i found myself truly missing friends and family. i'm quite excited and nervous to return to san francisco. i can't wait to once again hang with peeps that mean so much to me. it appears my social calendar is already filling up with concerts, weekends away, and a wedding. its a return to the living.

64 days and counting…

pictures from the birthday party can be found here

stay gold & be well…

international dateline

deery-lou.
i posted a new entry in the poetry section of shot&scrawled.
check it out if you got the time.

stay gold & be well…

balloon flower

deery-lou.
last night i went to see stone jazz with young and her friend. now keep in mind i'm not a huge jazz fan so when young first asked me to go i was somewhat reluctant. but seeing that life is all about new experiences i decided to go. i must say the show was amazing. they group incorporated jazz standards using the [contra bass, drum, piano] with traditional korean instruments [gayageum, haegm, and piri]. it was quite breathe taking. i love the sounds of the traditional korean instruments especially the haegm. surprisingly enough i actually knew a lot of the songs. and to hear them composed in such a way truly an experience. the band members are all korean and they had such a presence on stage. during some of the songs they had shadow dancers which were fun to watch. after the show i bought two of their cds on eastern angle, which included most of the songs they played that night and crossover korean soul, where they arranged korean folk songs to jazz. if you ever have a chance to check them out you should. take for a non-jazz fan, its well worth it.

lee wonsoo, composer/arrangements

on our way home home young and i got to witness some college kid throwing up on the subway. the best part was how his friend busted out the tissues and starting to clean it up. now thats true friendship. if such a thing happened back at home the mess would have be left for someone else to clean it. i will say this though, it was sans chunks so it really just looked like water. it sure was funny though to see all these people run away. i also noticed something else a bit more disturbing as i left young's apartment around 1:30 am. as i was coming down the stairs i ran into a woman. as i passed her she called out to someone. when i got to the front door of the apartment building there was a man with his penis out taking a piss right there in the entry way. come on. couldn't he have held it for the few flights up the stairs.

yesterday was also a good day for t-shirts. there were four that stood out among the crowd all worn by guys. the first was a pink shirt that said "every jack and gill". um, hi. gill is spelled with a "j". next there was the the "i have the money" with giant gold dollar signs. then was the boy were the justin timberlake shirt. however the best was the strip polo shirt i saw on this guy on the subway. he was standing a few feet away and i noticed on the breast of his shirt the letters "botto". i couldn't see the last letter because the strap of his bag was covering it. it was killing me. i kept staring hoping that he would move his bag but he didn't. by the time my stop came i still hadn't seen that last letter. when i got off i notice that he had too. he was leaning on the railing with his back exposed. knowing how all korean shirts have crap on the back i though here's my chance. sure enough in giant letters on the back of his stripy polo was the word "BOTTOM". oh if he only knew. you got to love korea for shit like that.

stay gold & be well…

p.s. i forgot to mention in yesterday's post that when i was showering one of the 5 year olds he decided to take a piss in the shower. i kept looking around as i was hosing it away hoping that no one noticed. no one did.

biological

deery-lou.
another day at the pool with the kids has come and gone. this time around we only golfed and swam. no dancing. sigh… alot of the kids were complaining about blisters they got from swinging the golf clubs. a couple of the kids are actually quite good at it. andy was having an off day. he didn't want to do anything and most of the time i spent keeping an eye on him. he was running around like a mad man. pool time was pretty uneventful. they are pretty good at entertaining themselves in the water so all we really have to do is watch them. i took some time for myself and went into the massaging pool. i met an old korean woman there who kept telling me what to do. she didn't speak english but i did my best to figure out what she was saying. the massaging pool felt great. still haven't mastered the shower time with the boys. they still manage to run around like crazy graping the shower nozzles and shooting water all over the place. its hard not to laugh when they are doing it. not sure how parents deal on a regular basis.

the another day during art class i was sitting at my desk while the children were working on their project. i caught wind of this conversation where sarah kept looking for her pencil and eventually found it.

sarah: hey jon.
jon: what?
sarah: it fun. my pencil here. [points to the floor]. it fun.
irene: what fun?
sarah: my pencil here. [points to the floor]. it fun.
irene: it fun.
jon: it fun.

stay gold & be well…

p.s. i scored some homemade pickles from sarah's mom. yummy

joshua

andy, the map reader

deery-lou.
this was quite a week for me to say the least. a lot has been going which i'm not quite ready to discuss here yet. hence my week long absence from posting. at school we had three days of sex education videos. one about where babies come from, another about it being ok to be yourself, and the last one about sex crimes. going into this i felt the children were too young for such films. however, the korean teachers said that its usually taught at this age so who am i to disagree. the films were in korean with english subtitles which made for some interesting translations. the animation was pretty good. there were a couple of times i tried not to laugh. not really sure the children completely understood the messages but they all seemed to love the anime. they were watching it again for a second time on friday for fun. the films were far different than the jimmy cricket film i saw about puberty in 5th grade.

on thursday we went to seoul land zoo. it was hot! the children were broken up into age groups [7 years old and 5-6 years old]. i was with the 7 years old. we weren't even at the zoo 10 minutes when some of them starting complaining. it was definitely going to be a long day. i was partnered up with andy. he is quite hard to control at times. although he was actually pretty good that day. i made him in charge of the map and that seemed to make him happy. until he kept asking me where the bus was over and over again. he wanted to go home but i told him we couldn't go home until after the dolphin show. during snack time i watched alice literally stuff chip after chip into her mouth. almost as if she was afraid she wouldn't get enough. kids sure are cute that way.

the dolphin show

fountain fun

snack time

as for zoos go it was pretty standard. nothing really unique about it. by far the best zoo i've seen has been in singapore. my favorite of the day were the otters. they are so peaceful. i could spend hours just watching them play around in the water. i want to come back as an otter. that way i can swim, play, and sleep all day long. although every time i see otters it makes be think of this sad movie we saw in grade school. what's up with all these movies from my past haunting me? its another hot and beautiful weekend here. i should really try to do something besides going out to get my haircut. hehe.

my otter video


zoo pictures here

stay gold & be well…

rock bottom

deery-lou.
yesterday the kindergarten school took a field trip to a farm to plant sweet potatoes and to pick plums. now when one says "farm" back home we think of tractors, animals, barns, etc. farms in korea aren't quite the same. there were no tractors, no animals, and no barns to speak of. instead there was a small house sort of like a mobile home, a small field, some dogs in cages, and it was right off the main road. i'm not sure i'd say it was one of the better field trips but the children did seem to enjoy themselves. then again children can have fun almost anywhere. the drive to the farm took almost two hours due to traffic. and let's just say it was anything but uneventful. we had two girls with stomach aches, 3 girls who peed on the bus in a plastic bag, and one girl who threw up. the fun never stops. at the farm the children planted sweet potato stalks, picked some sort of plum they use to made wine and other stuff with, and learned about different kinds of crops. i spent most of my time lifting children up to pick the plums off the high branches. thankfully the trip back only took an hour.

today is a holiday. not sure how i'm gonna spend my day. perhaps a little reading and relaxing is what the doctor ordered. it's amazing how exhausting the field trips can be. the weather has been getting warmer and warmer. it feels like its going to be another hot summer here. i hope everyone is doing well. take care.

check out the farm pictures here

stay gold & be well…

23

deery-lou.
on thursday we took a trip to the pool with the kindergarten class. this place was huge. it had a sauna floor, pool area, exercise room, and a driving range. the day started off with the kids learning how to golf at the indoor driving range. clubs were swinging erratically and balls were flying everywhere. they had a blast. then it was to the gym for the kids to unwind. they ran around like wild animals. andy kept calling me "ethan monster" the whole time. next the kids set off to learn a jazz routine. it was so funny watching them. a few just stood there not able to follow the moves. the best was skye who was totally getting into it. she was bumping and grinding with the best of them. a future star in the making. once the jazz class was finished we headed outside to the park for some lunch. after lunch it was pool time. this is were the madness set in. marc and i were in search of getting the boys ready. it was definitely a chore. we had to undress them, give them their bathing suits, and then pack of their old clothes. we tried doing it in groups of two. andy kept trying to take off his clothes before it was his time. i guess he was a bit anxious to get to the pool. it felt like it took hours. once they were dressed and ready to go we heading down to the pool area to await the girls arrival. we spent the next two hours swimming. there was one pool with slides that the kids loved. there was also a current pool where you went around in a circle and a few other pools. there was also a hot tube which was lovely. after swimming we had to take the boys back to the showers and wash their hair. this was chaos. the boys were running around like wild men. they also decided to have water fights with the shower nozzles. they were shooting water over to the area where people were having massages. it was definitely a workout keeping them in line. overall i think we did a good job managing them. hopefully next time marc and i will have our routine done with the dressing and washing. i found out that it only cost $10 for the aquatic package which includes the pool, men's hot tub room, and co-ed sauna. i know where i'll be spending my free time this summer.

here's a video from jazz class


check out the photos i took here

stay gold & be well…