work is a four-letter word

deery-lou.
another month and another group of birthday. for july we had three birthday kids: jason, sally, and sarah. jason turned five, while the girls turned seven. even though jason is only five he's starting to get the attitude that he rules the schools. he's always sashaying into the room. i gave him a pair of sunglasses i was going to throw away. he wore them with pride. during the birthday present exchange he was busted licking at the cake. he had frosting all over his nose. the boy has got the biggest belly ever. he's definitely a cutie. the party went off like any other. i found myself stuffing my face with mini donuts. yum. at the end of the school day marc and i had to clean the playroom. i recruited a student to climb behind the jungle gym to get the balls stuck behind it. i couldn't squeeze behind it. during his ball removal he discovered a cell phone. i thought for sure we'd also discover some hidden bodies or something. we didn't. that night we had a company dinner. the group decided to go to a bar afterwards. i opted to go home to get ready for my trip. instead i ended up passing out waking up at 2:30 am.

caleb & ethan

bag head davis

jason

joanna & new friend

there will be no blogs for a week. don't cry. i shall be heading off to vietnam today. stay posted for pictures of my trip. i'll be back in korea on august 4, which just so happens to me my mom's birthday. if you're reading this mom, happy early birthday.

pictures from the birthday party are here

stay gold & be well…

you don't know me

alice, sweet alice

deery-lou.
what do get when 20 children show up at school at 8pm in their pajamas? a pajama party gone crazy. advise to parents: a pj party should have a max of 7 kids. well as you can see i survived my sleep over at school. from the minute the little rugrats entered there was mayhem. i secretly think their moms shot them up with sugar. the evening started off with them playing with flashlights. we tried to organize a game with the flashlights but it just ended up with them running around the playroom in the dark doing whatever they wanted with their flashlights. there was whining was the batteries died, crying when one was lost, and screaming for the hell of it. they seemed to enjoy themselves so thats all that really matters. following the flashlight free for all we played hide and seek. they've still yet to master the concept of the game. many of them hide together and a few forgot to turn off their flashlights. snack time followed hide and seek. obviously my definition of snacks and the korean moms version is different. when i was a children enjoying the pleasures of a sleep over snacks consisted of potato chips, pretzels, chocolate, dips, soda, popcorn, etc. the mom's served up snacks that would be perfect for a picnic: chicken wings, herb chicken with potatoes, salad, watermelon, and some strange toast cheese thing topped with cherries. for drinks they supplied orange and grape juice.

tv time

snacks by moms

esther & skye

don't get me wrong, i'm not complaining. the food was very good. it just wasn't what i had in mind. the children had a hard time managing their mouse plates. a few ended up on the floor with food going everywhere. fancy sundaes followed the snacks. i'm still wondering why the teachers didn't get any sundaes. hmmmm. we set up the library for the children to sleep in. we attempted for them to watch mary poppins but they seemed quite bored. luckily i brought some cartoons so i popped in a teen titans dvd. i love introducing them to superheroes. we watched three episodes before telling them they had to go to sleep. most of them went down without a problem. there were a few girls who got the case of chatter bugs. andy was a bit more difficult to get settled. he insisted on having his flashlight with him. after battling with him for 10 minutes we decided he could have it. he got quiet immediately. i didn't sleep much that night. the room got extremely warm and my body kept getting stuck on the mat i was sleeping on. i was up by 7:30am and went into my classroom where i could cool off. breakfast consisted of kimbab, noodles, cakes, and cookies. don't ask. after breakfast we played two more games. one where they tried to bite chips hanging off a string and the other where they throw plastic balls at handmade pinatas. they loved throwing the balls. i think most of them ending up hitting each other. around 10:30 they all headed home. i made my way home shortly after that and spent my day doing nothing.

for pictures of the pj party click here

stay gold & be well…

scale

I have a sequin for an eye
Pick a rose and hide my face
This is a bandit's life
It comes and goes and mends the breaks
Under a molten sky, beyond the road, we lie in wait
You think they know us now?
Wait 'til the stars come out
You'll see that…

deery lou.
youth. there are days when i sometimes yearn to return to my youth. to a time when things are so new. a time when you have the whole world at your feet. just waiting for you to take a piece of it. we had our monthly visit to the swimming pool today. of course it was raining, not that it really matters since its indoors. however, it seems to rain every pool day. i met a friend today at the pool while i was sitting on the stairs watching my students go around and around the circular pool. we got to talking. his english was good. most likely the result of having lived in canada since he was 8 years old. i found out he is spending his summer in korea with his family. he told me his dad lives in korea while the rest of his family lives in canada. at first i thought he was a college student but later found out he was in high school. fifteen to be precise. that's what got me thinking about when i was 15. he seemed completely bored. the result of having no friends in korea. we chatted for a bit, then i had to go round up students who were wildly running around the pool.

there was a lot more action at the pool this time. i didn't wear my contacts or glasses so it was kind of hard to keep track of the kids. for a while i had to play boat with joanna, who just so happens to be the biggest girl in our school. we were chasing sea monsters. we managed to kill at least 7 of them. i did manage to squeeze in a little break by sneaking off to the pool area that has the massaging jets. it felt so good. there was also a group of "special" needs adults at the pool. one of them kept bobbing up and down the whole time they went around. every time he passed someone he would splash them. i'm not sure if he was aware of the strength he had. it made me nervous every time he got near one of the children. on one of his passes he stopped in front of my as i sat on the edge of the pool. he held out his hand as if he wanted to shake. i returned the gesture. before i knew what had happened he had pulled me into the water. i had be right. he was quite strong. i managed to break his grip. he went on bobbing down the pool. one of the people watching them came over and bowed and said sorry. so while most of the teachers were watching the students, anna teacher [the head teacher] spent the pool time sleeping in a lounge chair. i still can't believe it. if only i had my camera to capture that kodak moment. her laziness has gotten out of control. and now that she claims to be pregnant it's only gotten worse. she's not married so i'm not exactly sure what the school's is going to be about that. and the dad happens to be one of the bus drivers. its like i'm living in my own personal korean drama.

tomorrow night is our pajama party. the kindergarten classes are going to be spending the night at school. i'm actually dreading the sleep over. i mean who the hell wants to spend the night at school. not me. it has the makings of pure chaos. i just hope they get good snacks. after all snacks can make or break a party.

stay gold & be well…

paint's peeling

deery-lou.
so the picture you see above was drawn by andy. andy's one of those "special" children. he's definitely in his own little world but often times his art is so expressive. not sure what it is about his stick figures but they speak volumes to me. lately he's been on a kick where he is fixated on his pink watch. every five seconds he's checking the time. i have to tell him 3 or 4 times to stop looking at the watch. now when i call his name he says "yes, no watch." love that little guy.

on friday night i met up with some my fellow foreign co-workers for some beers. i ended up at some underground russian bar in the middle of an apartment complex. it was like walking into a completely different world. a world where korean was the language of choice. even the asians spoke russian. they didn't know a word of korean. it was some girl's birthday which meant vodka shots were happening all night long. i finally had to drag myself out of there around 3 am. this body just can't handle vodka shots.

on saturday i went to itaewon to get a visa for vietnam. yes, i'm going to vietnam for vacation. i decided at the last minute that i should take advantage of going to one more place before heding back to the states. i'm going with no set agenda. i sort of just want to experience what happens when ni get there. it should be exciting.

heading off to hongdae to meet up with a friend for lunch. i'm starting to get in my final goodbyes before the big day on sept 1. i'm really looking forward to getting back home. its been too long.

stay gold & be well…

sundrops [strings version]

deery-lou.
a little post script to my "hardy boys mystery". on friday sticky fingers brought me a present. most likely a peace offering from her mother. could it be money?a watch?something expensive and flashy? all of these thoughts were running through my mind. i waited until the end of day to open it. to my horror it was two packs of STICKERS. nothing like the ones her thieving daughter took. instead i was subjected to smiley faces and mushrooms. MUSHROOMS! my thoughts exactly. on the package of stickers was a post-it written in korea. i took the liberty of translating it myself. in my mind it read: "dear ethan teacher. i'm so sorry for the actions of my thieving daughter. she has brought great shame to our family name. please accept these stickers on her behalf. if she is caught stealing again we will cut off her hands. sincerely sticky fingers mom."
in actuality the note said something like these: "i couldn't find the exact stickers skye took. i hope these will be ok. i'm truly sorry for her actions."sticky fingers has now taken up to being my nbf. she's always sitting next to me. i heard through the grapevine that she is becoming quite the naughty little girl outside of class. saying rude things to other students. of course i'd never know since its all said in korean. however, as long as she stays a little angel in my class i'll forgive her.

my apartment is in chaos. i have crap all over the place. i've been trying to pack some stuff up to ship. i did manage to get one box sent but the rest of the stuff is on my floor. i had good intentions of doing some packing yesterday but that dam internet stopped my. somehow i got sucked into d-list and facebook. then i decided to watch two episodes of charlies angels to finish off the box set so that i could pack them away. i'm also doing some marathon reading for all the books i don't want to keep. i sure am busy doing nothing.

stay gold & be well…

i'm the only one

deery-lou.
tonight the hardy boys in the mystery of the stolen stickers. the part of frank hardy will be played by yours truly.hehe. a couple of weeks ago i noticed that a stack of stickers were missing from my drawer at school. then a few days later some candy was gone. my first thought was to install a baby cam to catch the culprit but i knew the koreans wouldn't go for it. then i thought perhaps i'll set up a sting operation but that required too much work. i spoke to my students about going through my stuff hoping that the guilty one would confess. then i realized that they probably had no clue as to what i was saying. as the days passed i sat thinking about you could have taken them. the prime suspects would be the kindergarten kids since they spend the most time at school. but which one of those cuties could be behind such an act. they all look so innocent. i asked the korean teachers to speak to the students. it seemed that i was the only one who thought this was a big deal. it finally took some stickers missing from a korean teachers room for them to finally speak to them. unfortunately the guilty one still didn't confess. i tried snooping in their backpacks but didn't turn up anything. by now i figured the case would forever go unsolved. my luck would soon change when the other day i was looking at their daily report journals. sweet innocent skye's journal was decorated with stickers. stickers that happened to look exactly like the ones missing from my desk. coincidence, i think not. i mentioned it to the korean teachers. they all seemed surprised. it seems like syke has a case of sticky fingers which has now become her nickname. it makes perfect sense since sticky fingers guards her backpack as if it were gold. so yesterday in between classes elizabeth teacher told me that sticky fingers had something to say to me. i could see tears forming in her eyes. it took a few minutes but she was finally able to say sorry for taking my stickers. i immediately wanted to call the police but they felt that would be a bit harsh. i'm a firm believer that they are never too young for strict punishment. according to elizabeth who had asked sticky fingers about all her stickers, she first said that she found them stuck to her shoe in the playroom. not only does she steal but she's a mastermind at lying too. when elizabeth said she was going to call her mom the story changed. sticky fingers admitted that she wanted the stickers so while everyone was in the playroom she went into my classroom to get them. BUSTED!!! i tried to get her to confess to the candy but she didn't. i'm keeping a close eye on sticky fingers these days. she's a crafty one.

another case solved!

stay gold & be well…