all fired up

deery-lou.
four days left…

last week the kids made chocolate frozen bananas in their korean class. on monday someone had the bright idea to let them eat the bananas at snack time instead of having milk. it was 9:30 am. it took them my class the entire time to eat their bananas. we had 10 minutes of actual work time. there was chocolate all over the place. of course i took advantage of the time and took pictures of them.

trying to eat banana

stuffing it all in

sad banana face

we've also had a cootie outbreak this week. two students have shown up with lice. the koreans act as if its no big deal. meanwhile i'm telling the all the kids to stay clear of me. i ask them if they have the cooties. the all say no. but in truth they have no idea what i'm saying. thats the beauty of it all. the last thing i want to catch is cooties before i leave. our cootie victims both showed up at school on tuesday. i couldn't believe it. i spent the whole day feeling itchy and avoiding the two of them. i would not be surprised if we had an outbreak. especially since the use the same comb on all the kids. ummm hello. cootie breeding ground!!!

my weekend was spent in hongdae hanging out with chen, arleen, and ruth. it was good to see them all. we sat around drinking coffee and cocktails. it was definitely a nice way to end my final visit to seoul. while walking around the market i was asked to hold some sign for a video. they tried to tell me what it was for but i had no idea what they were talking about. i thought they were saying "tarot" but later when i went to search for the video i realized it was about the taliban. i must have be cut from the video. i saw my sign but didn't see me. figures. my one shot at stardom. you can view the video here.

more banana photos here

stay gold & be well…

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…

girl afraid

deery-lou.
some days you just need a little rainbow connection.



debbie harry rocks!!

stay gold & be well…

sunset

deery-lou.
in december 05 i went to see a fortune teller. he told me that the year of dog, which i am, was currently in a 3 year rut of bad luck. apparently 2006 was the third year of this bad luck. the teller couldn't have been more right. with only 12 more days until the lunar new year the last month of the dog has been nothing but grim. it first started with stomach problems. granted in the past i've been struck with such problems but they only seemed to last a day or two at most. this on again, off again problem has seemed to last well over a month. yesterday, i went and got more magic pills/powder from the pharmacist. they seem to be doing the trick. although the power stuff tastes awful. then there was the news of my friends death which i spoke about it a previous post. i received her obit this morning. as i read it, there were things i didn't even know about her. it didn't really sound like the shortcake i had come to love in sf.of course it was written from her parents perspective so perhaps they had a different vision of her. whatever the truth may be, it made me sad to read it. for it only confirmed that which i had hope was all a bad dream. as if these two things weren't enough, on saturday i got word from misty that my kitty wasn't doing well. misty's been taking care of aikea since i left for korea. at the time i left, aikea was ill. she had stopped eating and was hiding in my closet as i packed. at the time i figured it was because she knew something was up. that was three years ago and with some fluids and love from misty and ted she seemed to be doing much better. when i was sf back in august last year she seemed to be her old perky, bitchy self. meowing as i tried to hold her and only coming to me on her own terms. i felt happy because i knew then and there that aikea had adjusted to her new life with them and was doing fine. but as life goes on, things change. during my conversation with misty on saturday she informed me that aikea had stopped eating again. they took her to the vet but the x-rays turned up nothing. the vet suggested doing an ultrasound but misty held off wanting to speak with me first. we came to the decision to wait and see if the anti-nausea pills would do the trick before having an ultrasound done. i didn't really want to put aikea through much more. she's never enjoyed going to the vet or anywhere in the cat carrier for that matter. we also discussed future events. i told misty my thoughts on everything and let her know that whatever she and ted decided was fine with him. after all we needed to think of aikea. i always knew that i didn't want her to suffer and i believe they feel the same. on monday misty informed me that the vet had gotten back the blood work. aikea's kidneys have completely failed and there's nothing that can be done. sadly this lead to only one solution: putting her to sleep. putting one's pet to asleep is always a difficult thing but when you have to do it for a friend it must be extremely tough. i feel bad that my dear friend has to deal with this matter. i know it's hard but i completely support her. after all i'd be doing the same thing if i was home. aikea's live a great life and there's no way i want her final days to be in pain. knowing that aikea gets completely traumatized when going anywhere, misty has arranged for a vet to come to the house. i'm thankful for that because i know that her final hours will be in a place she feels comfortable and with people who love her. i only wish that i could be there with her to say one final goodbye. i will surely miss her screaming, bitchy self. she's truly one of a kind.

about two weeks ago ted sent me a video of aikea. its hard to imagine so much can change in such a short period of time. i'd like to share that video here.



stay gold & be well…

holy moly

deery-lou.
friday and saturday was spent at ski camp with school. we had 25 students that went. overall the students were well behaved until we got to the hotel. then the boys were all hell driven. the boys rooms smelled like rotten feet so i made them wash their feet. afterwards it was orange fights, pillow fights, and all around craziness until the movie. i had one boy try to tell me that bedtime wasn't until 11pm. i told him nice try but he was going to bed now since we had to get up early. i only had to check in on them once after that. they actually went down without any problems. the teachers spent the rest of the night eating fried chicken and drinking beer. can't beat that. i spent my time at ski camp interviewing new teachers. good times, good times.

ace

photos from ski camp are here.

stay gold & be well…

white suckers

deery-lou.
did saturday even happen? i went through the day like a walking zombie. we had our school christmas party and then office party on friday. the children had a great time. the day consisted of a song contest, snacks & a movie, and then gift exchange. it was busy, busy, busy. here are a few photos. i took a lot with my 35mm so i'll post them once i finish the roll.

santa luke & sara

santa luke

santa's helpers singing

more singing

the song contest was priceless. watching my two kinder kids [luke and sara] sing the twelve days of christmas brought tears to my eyes. i felt like a proud parent. they had to memorize two parts each. sara had day 4 and day 9, luke day 5 and day 10. they sang their hearts out. here's a brief video of the whole group singing up to day 5.



my 2 o'clock and 2:40 class sang deck the halls. here they are practicing before the big contest.



my 4:15 class joined another class to sing jingle bell rock. you gotta love their hats.



i didn't get a video of my last two classes. one group sang winterwonder, the other sang a combo of santa claus is coming to town and i'm getting nothing for christmas. the group singing the combo song added a gag routine to their performance. it was quite amusing.

i was completely starved by the time we went to dinner. somehow i managed to get completely tanked at the company party. and the sad thing is i hardly had anything to drink. perhaps it was the moonshine mixed with soju that sent me over the edge. however, i was smart enough to bail out early. i thought the walk home would somber me up but no. i awoke the next morning not even remembering going to bed. i will say this though, i slept like a baby.

tonight i'm off to catch up with some friends for dinner. as for christmas day not sure what i'm doing. at night i have another dinner and in the afternoon bc and i might try to catch a movie. the science of sleep has made it to korea. yeah!!!

merry christmas!

stay gold & be well…

plan a

deery-lou.
all the kids are doing it.
check this out:
pump master
click on the picture with the guy in the taekwondo outfit [i think its the last video].

stay gold.
be well…