Learning to be sassy

I don't know how to wink.

Okay, so that's not entirely true. I understand the concept and my muscles respond appropriately when I concentrate on the task. I guess my issue isn't with the act of winking as much as it is that I don't have any idea what to do with my face while I'm winking. I don't know to what extent I should wink.

When I try to wink, one of two things happens. I either wink too much:

or not enough:

Maybe I should have titled this post "Reason 742 Why I'm Single."

Anyway, so this week, our letter was W. Naturally, I decided it would be a great idea to teach my kids how to wink in honor of our letter. I'm the last person in the world you want teaching someone how to wink (see above pictures), but I'd say it went over pretty well. Better than the time I thought I would teach them how to read, at least.

Not all of the kids were confident enough in their abilities to pose for a picture, but here are a few of the really good ones. And by really good, obviously I mean hilarious.

Lest you think I like any of these kids more than Brian, I asked him to join in the fun too.

I may not be the best at teaching trivial things like spelling and math, but I'm teaching them how to flirt really, really badly, and that's all that matters in the end.

*Note: The first picture I post always ends up as the thumbnail on facebook's newsfeed. I've been debating this whole time whether I should add an irrelevant unicorn or something at the beginning so people don't see those terrible pictures unless they click the link. Screw it. Let's call it a lesson in humility. Or humiliation. Either way, a lesson.

The fever (I don't have it)

A lot of my friends here have Yellow Fever. It's a pretty common stereotype that all the foreign men in Korea came here to meet pretty little Asian girls, but a decent number of my white girl friends will admit to having a touch of the Fever.

(Before I get too far, I want to clarify that I'm not being racist when I use the term Yellow Fever. Basically it's my way of saying that my friends find themselves sexually attracted to members of the opposite sex who exhibit physical characteristics that clearly have descended from Asian ancestry. That's a lot to say, and it makes it sound more like I'm studying the mating habits of some kind of exotic animal, so I'm going to stick with Yellow Fever. Also, when you're here, people are surprisingly more okay with racial epithets than in the US. I was always so afraid of not coming across as completely PC at home, but here, my pastor refers to himself as a Twinkie - yellow on the outside and white on the inside. Whole different world.)

Aside from the boy at the bank (with whom I am still desperately in love), I haven't found myself attracted to many Asian men. The flip side of that coin is that I love white boys.

Like, a lot.

Maybe too much.

The other day, I was walking down into the subway station when a boy with shaggy brown hair appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Our eyes met when we crossed paths in the middle, and I felt my stomach flip flop a little. The second I was past him, I honestly had to fight to keep my feet moving in the direction I had originally planned to go; every fiber in my being wanted to chase this stranger up the stairs and find out where he was going. Then go there with him.

This wouldn't be restraining-order-creepy if it only happened the one time (and no, I didn't follow him). Sadly, it happens all. the. time. It's like my bar for potential mates has dropped from "at least mostly attractive" to "white".

Is it just me, or is he sexy?

I don't actually ever talk to any of these men I pass in the street because (1) they probably have Yellow Fever and are not even a little bit interested in a white girl and (2) I'm kind of afraid I'd get them back to the States and realize they look like that guy in the picture. It's like being surrounded by Asians has given me a really bizarre form of beer-goggles, and my qualifications for a future husband have suddenly whittled themselves down to simply "speaks semi-fluent English". I'm honestly a little nervous about going back to the States in the fall and being surrounded by average, run-of-the-mill white boys. Someone's going to have to follow me around to make sure I'm not handing out my phone number to guys named Cleetus.

Apparently I've passed along my affinity for the white boys to my students; here's Grace during her very first introduction to Justin Bieber.

I'm oddly proud of the damage I'm inflicting on the next generation of Koreans.

Zombies aren't global

There are a lot of things I don't think about. Gum disease. How shoelaces are made. Apartheid. What "apartheid" even is. Exercising.

This week, I discovered another thing that apparently I wasn't thinking about enough: how other cultures portray zombies.

I bet you've never thought about that either. I mean, why would you? Zombies seem pretty self-explanatory, right? Walking undead monster. Check. Trying to eat your brains. Double check. Awesome addition to Michael Jackson videos. Triple check.

Apparently, I really should think about important matters such as this more often.

Here's how this all came about. My coteacher and I take the kids to the bathroom approximately thirty-seven thousand times a day. She takes the boys and I take the girls. In the girls' bathroom, there are three child-sized stalls, so three of my girls have to wait patiently while the other three use the bathroom. Since their teacher is "waiting patiently" with them, and I'm the least patient person in the whole world, we usually end up playing.

It started out that I would pretend to be a monster and chase them. Asking why this was my first response to waiting-in-line-in-the-bathroom boredom is futile. There's no explaining things like this. They just happen. Eventually, the girls started lining up on the other side of the bathroom and slowly marching toward me like a band of undead warriors.

They march toward me with their arms raised and I feign indifference until they're directly underneath me. As soon as they're within grabbing range, I stomp my foot really loud and grab half-heartedly at them, which sends them all running in a fit of giggles away from me. Repeat. Normally there's no one else in the bathroom when this happens, so we can be weirder than Al in privacy.

Recently, however, we've been getting caught. A few different teachers have walked in while my zombie army is advancing, and they all look at me like maybe I shouldn't be allowed out of a padded room. JoAnn seems to always be the one who catches me acting like a fool with my littles, and of course, she walked in during one of our walking corpse attacks. I just kind of shrugged because, I mean, you'd think people would be used to the fact that I'm far from normal by now. She laughed for a while, then she told me one of the best things I've heard in YEARS.

Zombies in Korea don't walk. They hop.

According to my sources (aka, wikipedia), these corpses originated in China. The idea was that if someone happened to be buried in another town, the decomposing body would get homesick. When people died away from their hometowns, however, it was often too expensive to transport them home. To avoid dead body homesickness, the corpses were taught to hop home. There are other accounts of the myth (involving criminals trying to scare the police by looking like... reanimated kangaroos?), but this one is my favorite.

Of course, our best friend youtube was there to help us out in confirming this myth. Here's an old Chinese movie with a hopping zombie. Maybe you should turn all the lights on and cuddle a bunny rabbit to avoid being too afraid. Oh, and make sure your sound is up. It's worth it.

I also asked my kids to demonstrate. Obviously.

After I asked them to be zombies for me, I started to get afraid. It's pretty scary being surrounded by three-year-olds every day, but being surrounded by hopping zombies is a whole new kind of terror. I hopped (get it?!) back over to wiki to find out how to vanquish these beings of pure evil, and it told me that all I have to do is write a spell on a yellow piece of paper and stick it on their foreheads. Easy peasy.

You can click on the picture to make it bigger and read what spell I obviously chose to vanquish Rachel.

If you ever visit the Far East, always make sure you have a pad of sticky notes, just in case of a zombie outbreak.

Stickers are (not) worthless

I'm excessively frugal. I love finding goofy gag gifts, but I'm more likely to take a picture of said item than purchase it. Before I buy a hat in the shape of Seoul Tower, I imagine how I'll feel when I get home and realize that thanks to some stupid hat, I'm now $10 further from paying off my student loans. Aside from a few necessities (like a thousand pairs of awesome socks - later post), I don't like spending money on things I don't physically need to survive.

Something I don't really purchase often, therefore, is stickers. Sure, stickers are cute. But... their entire purpose is to simply stick on another object. Why? Why do I need a small image to stick to an object? And what types of objects am I supposed to put stickers on, exactly? I have a few stickers on my Nalgene, but I have to be super-careful when I wash it so they don't rub off. I've put some stickers on my planner, but what happens next year when I stop carrying that planner? I no longer have the stickers I was so proud of. There is absolutely no object in my entire possession that I look at and think, "Oh, I'll definitely have this until I'm 80. I'll put my sticker on here!" All my stuff is just stuff, and covering it with stickers will merely make it cluttered stuff. Thus, stickers are (to me) the biggest waste of money possible.

I kind of assumed everyone thought this way about stickers, and so a little part of me always wondered why the sticker industry is so huge. Doesn't everyone realize that stickers are inherently worthless? They're tiny pieces of paper with a strange glue substance on the back that portray a random image or phrase. Why yes, that sticker does have a Power Ranger on it. But there's nothing that I own that needs a Power Ranger on it right now, thanks.

Anyway, I'm a kindergarten teacher. That means stickers are my life. Every morning, the kids file into my classroom, and at least one of them will pelt me with stickers. It's usually one of the girls, and I end up with five or six different Disney Princesses around my waist (that's as high as they can reach). I show a ridiculously high level of excitement to encourage their fragile psyches, and as soon as they're not looking, I toss all the stickers in the trash. I know, I know, I'm heartless. Whatever.

Something a little different happened this morning though. One of the mommies wrote me a note saying that her daughter spent two hours - TWO hours! - working on a single page of her homework to make all the letters look perfect. This student's handwriting has been, well, indecipherable scribbles since day one, but today's homework looked really, really good. I called her over to her desk and asked her who wrote the letters on her paper. Instead of being excited and proud, she coiled up into herself and wouldn't answer. I rephrased the question a few times, and finally, staring at her shoes, she whispered her own name. I turned her face up to mine and told her they were some of the prettiest letters I had ever seen (teaching is all about lying), and I placed a purple sticker on her hand. You should have seen the way her whole face just lit up. Well, actually, you can see it. I took a picture.

When she went back to her desk, I leaned over to talk to another student. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught her kissing her sticker. Kissing it. A sticker. On her hand. And it was one of the most precious things I'd ever seen.

So I got to thinking about how maybe I view stickers in entirely the wrong way. Yes, they're pointless. But really there's no physical object I can think of that actually possesses all the grandeur we've given it. I have a stuffed dog on my bed that Michelle gave me freshman year of college, and that bag of cotton made the cut as something that needed to fit inside my two allowed suitcases when I moved across the world. I'd be sad if something happened to it, but still, it's just a toy. Easily replaceable. It's the relationship behind the object that gives it meaning. The sticker on Grace's hand is just a sticker, but to her, it represents putting in so much effort and making her teacher very proud. Things are just things, but sometimes they can help you remember how important something was to you at a particular moment in time.

I'm probably not going to go out and start buying random crap any time soon, but maybe I'll think twice before I throw away all the stickers on my waist tomorrow morning.

Validation

It's Sunday night, which means I'm patiently waiting for Mommy and Daddy to come online so we can have our weekly chat. I spent the whole day with my really great friends, going to church, getting lunch then ice cream, noraebang-ing, and (unsuccessfully) shoe shopping at Express Bus Terminal. Despite all of that, and for reasons I can't quite put my finger on, I'm feeling inexplicably lonely right now. I've been feeling off all week, like I'm a shadow watching my life go on but not actively participating. It's an unsettling and depressing feeling.

Thus I'm writing a blog post with a funny video I've been saving for a while in hopes that people will like the video and, by association, like me more because of it. Could you indulge my shamefully low self-esteem and comment on this post? I'd really appreciate it. Here's a possibly possessed child for your troubles.

Emergency procedures make me like kids

Warning: this post is weird. I know that. I'm going to try to explain myself, but I'll probably just come across sounding crazy. Oh well, it's not the first time, and it won't be the last.

This morning at GATE School, we had a fire drill. I know that at home, the teachers are far better prepared than the students, but knowledge of the impending emergency drill is really as far as it goes. In Korea, however,we're really prepared. Like, all the way prepared.

Twenty minutes before the fire drill, we had to get the kids ready to go. We bundled them up in their coats and scarves and waited in a patient line for the alarm to ring. Maybe I just forget how it was in elementary school and this is actually the norm, but I feel like I recall standing in the freezing cold hoping that I'd get to witness the moment when the whole building exploded (I pulled all my knowledge of fires from Hollywood).

Our school is on the fourth floor of an office building, so we had to lead the kids down four flights of stairs to the parking lot. I need to brag a little bit here: my kids were by far the best behaved.

Look at them standing all quiet and adorable in a line! If only they were that well-behaved all the time...

As we walked back up the stairs, I felt a ridiculous fondness for my littles. I felt extremely protective, like if a fire were to pop up in the hallway, I would dive headfirst into it and beat it into submission with my bare hands. Apparently mama bear instincts in my head are closely tied to affection; I frickin' loved those kids by the time we got back upstairs. They were my favorite people in the whole world, and I wanted to show them off to everyone as though they were prize-winning sheep.

This wouldn't be weird for me, except the fact that this isn't the first time emergency procedures have made me like a group of kids significantly more than I did ten minutes before. During my student teaching, we had a "pretend-there's-a-psycho-loose-in-the-building-and-hide-in-the-corner-of-your-classroom-so-you-can-get-killed-like-sitting-ducks" drill, during the class that drove me crazy. I kind of hung out in the corner letting the kids be my human shield for the first thirty seconds or so, but when they all had huddled into the corner, some kind of weird savior complex came over me. I made my way to the front of the group and proudly stationed myself in front of all my kids. I knew no one was actually coming to get us, and I also knew that if they did, I'd be the least effective bullet shield on the planet. When the drill was over, I genuinely felt like all the kids were still alive due to some protective maneuver on my part. They owed their lives to me, and that made me like them more.

I'm so weird.

I've spent the whole day desperately in love with my kids. During lunch, I usually tell them they have to leave me alone, but today I jumped out of my chair and played with them. It sounds pretty stupid now that I'm typing it; I teach a bunch of three- and four-year-olds yet I never play with them, but I just don't. I was so frustrated with having to teach a classroom full of kids who don't speak my language that I forgot that they're just kids. It turns out they're actually pretty fun.

(Little story: when I was playing with the kids, all the boys chased me with guns they had made out of legos. My co-teacher shouted something at them in Korean, and I asked her what she said. "I told them to stop killing the teacher." Does that make anyone else laugh or am I just really giddy today? I guess it doesn't matter.)

This post is kind of just for me

As you well know, I've been having a terrible time with my kids lately. They don't listen to me, they're awfully disrespectful, and they cry when I try to discipline them. I'm basically winging it 98% of the day and just praying I'm not screaming my head off when people walk by my classroom. It's been rough.

Today, however, was a little miracle. The kids weren't angels by any means, but they kind of listened. They knew they had upset me a lot yesterday (after my blog post, I hid in the library and cried for an hour about my inability to impart wisdom in any form), and they seemed like they were actually trying to make me feel better. They listened to me sometimes, and they told each other to stop speaking Korean so I wouldn't have to yell. That could in part be because I made two kids cry today... baby steps.

Anyway, so the reason I'm posting is because there was a moment today that was so sweet I'm not sure I can even capture it. After we watched Mr. M of the Letter People, I closed out the window and my kids saw the background of my desktop.

That's the picture I had on my old computer too, and my other kids always asked if that was my family (probably because all white people look the same). When my new kids saw the picture, though, they all got quiet and studied it, then one precious little girl raised her hand. When I called on her, she said in her broken English, "Miss Nikki, those friends?" I told her they are my friends in Ohio. She looked like she was thinking for a minute before she smiled and said, "Look like good friends. Happy."

Sometimes I guess it takes a three-year-old to get me to stop complaining about every little thing and remember the many, many blessings I have.

Whiny, whiny, whiny

Don't read this post. Seriously, just don't. Go right back to facebook and keep surfing. Or watch this video and make that song your ringtone.

I warned you. Go. Back.

I hate teaching fives. Hate it. The kids are so adorable, but only in a "I'd look at a picture of that kid" kind of way. I don't want to be in charge of their education. This is just like when I taught at the preschool, except at least then I signed up for it. This time, I was told I was teaching kindergarten, and three-year-olds are not kindergarten.

Thus far today, June has sneezed six times. Why do I know that number exactly? Because every time he sneezes, he blows snot all over his face. Seriously, I wiped snot off his ear. His freaking ear. The disgustingness of this is only rivaled by the fact that every time he sneezes, he stares at me with a look that clearly conveys that I am the only person in the world who could possibly be responsible for what has happened. He doesn't even attempt to get a tissue himself; that's my job, and my job alone. I've never wanted so badly to tell a three-year-old that he's a pretentious asshole.

On top of that, the kids don't listen to me. At all. My other kids spoke really good English, and they used their English all day long. The rule at GATE is "No Korean in the classroom," but that apparently doesn't fly in my class. They speak Korean all day. They talk to each other in Korean, they talk to my co-teacher in Korean, they talk to me in Korean. When I tell them to speak English, they just repeat back "English, English, English" in a high-pitched voice, then go on babbling in Korean. Basically, they spend the whole day mocking me.

Additionally, I'm expected to do activities that are significantly outside these kids' ability levels. We had to fill out a time capsule book today, and the kids had to write their names on the first page. I wrote my own name on the board and said a DOZEN times that they needed to write their names in the blank on their paper. What name did they write? I don't think I need to tell you. As we went through the rest of the book, my morale steadily fell through the floor, until I finally just collected their books and sang the Days of the Week song until lunch.

Speaking of songs, I have to sing a song for everything we do. A song for sitting down, a song for lining up, a song for cleaning toys, a song for eating snack, a song for eating lunch, a song for the days of the week, a song for the months of the year, a song for everything. Do you remember at the top when I said the kids don't listen to me? Okay, well that still applies. So I feel like a giant tool while I stand at the front of the room singing songs to a bunch of kids who think the only reason I was born was to wipe the snot off their ears.

I'm gonna go hang out with Brian.

A children's story

Teaching fives (and remember, that's Korean age five, so in the real world, they're three and a half to four) is very different from teaching sixes. My sixes could read and write, and I spent much of my time encouraging them to write hilarious stories or teaching them unnecessarily complex vocabulary words just to amuse myself. Now that I'm in the tiny class, however, things are drastically different. We spend a lot of time - and I mean a LOT of time - practicing holding pencils and getting them to successfully make marks on paper.

I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was so not made to be a kindergarten teacher. I'm not at all going to quit, and I (probably) won't end up killing any of them, but it's really not my cup of tea. I've been dealing with a lot of guilt about that lately, like there's something wrong with me since singing the ABC's a thousand times a day makes me want to punch a wall. I talked with Tiffany about this, and she's been trying to convince me that it's completely okay for this to not be my passion. When I talk about Hamlet and Macbeth, her eyes glaze over, and I'm pretty sure someone would end up in the hospital if you made her teach anyone over the age of seven. Tiffany loves teaching kindergarten, and I really don't, but it's okay. Just like it's okay that I desperately want to be in a high school classroom while Tiff would end up murdering them. If we all wanted to be kindergarten teachers, the world would be an educationally stifled, albeit colorful, place.

One thing I've been enjoying in my new curriculum is the fairy tales. Granted, I've only done one, but it was the most morbidly hilarious fable I've ever presented to a batch of toddlers. While I have your attention, I'd like to retell this story for you. Get some popcorn.

Once upon a time, there was a turtle in the sea. He wanted very much to fly in the air above the trees and houses and people, so he crawled up on shore to find an eagle to help him fly. When he found an eagle, he asked her to please teach him how to fly. The eagle replied that turtles cannot fly and that he should return to the sea, but the turtle would not relent. He wanted to fly. He asked the eagle to carry him in her talons while she flew in the air so he could see the world from the sky. The eagle didn't want to carry him because she was afraid he would fall, but the turtle promised that he would hold on very tight. The eagle, against her better judgment, grabbed hold of the turtle and soared into the air. The flight was exhilarating! The turtle could see for miles and miles, but he wanted to go higher. The eagle told the turtle it would not be safe to fly higher into the clouds, but the turtle was a manipulative little jerk and he convinced the eagle to go higher. As they flew higher and higher, the turtle decided he could probably fly on his own, and he asked the eagle to release him. The eagle refused. Either the turtle was quite persuasive, or the eagle was quite dumb; either way, the turtle assured the eagle he would be fine, so she dropped him. He flapped his little arms for a few seconds before realizing (shocker!) that he was actually just falling. He twisted and turned in the air, but he just couldn't stop the force of gravity. Although they had been flying peacefully above the ocean, the turtle managed to smash into a rock, and his shell exploded into a thousand pieces. He, of course, died.

The moral of our lovely tale? Know your limits.

No, I'm not kidding. Nothing like a little dose of reality to destroy little imaginations. I followed the lesson by telling them that Santa Claus is actually a pedophile because, hey, they needed to have every ounce of joy squeezed out of them.


The best (and when I say "best," I mean "WTF Korea?!") part of this lesson was that after I read them the story in a picture book, they were then blessed with the opportunity to watch the video. My little serial killers thought the graphic death was hysterical both times. Should I be worried?

The three main characters in the story were the turtle, the eagle, and a fish who had the unfortunate luck of witnessing the turtle shattering his shell on the rocks. I asked the kids to copy the animal names into their notebooks then draw a picture of one. Here's Sarah's rendition of (what else?) the death scene.

I can only assume that pink thing is his brain flying out of his head. 

And, yes, I know it says "furfle" but seriously - she's not even four yet.

After they all had drawn pictures, I asked them to come up to the front of the room to explain their drawings to the class. Basically I just said words and they repeated them, but we're learning. I asked them to repeat the names of the animals (turtle - eagle - fish), and Irene, well, kind of did that.

You're not hearing that wrong; she's saying turtle - eagle - bitch. Not quite what I had in mind.

The new littles may not be Brian, but it's looking like I'll still have some great stories to tell.

I think I just miss Brian

I've been horrifically un-fun these past few days. This morning when I went into my vice-principal's office to ask her a question, she immediately asked if I had been crying. I actually hadn't been, but the fact that my expression permanently looks like someone who has been recently sobbing certainly isn't good.

I think it's because I miss Brian.

No really.

I know my last post was a delightful mess of "woe-is-me" for other reasons, but today it occurred to me that my life simply isn't as good without Brian. Thus, I created excuses to see him, um, all day. The thing I like most about that little bugger is that every time he sees me, he sprints across the room and climbs up me like a little Asian monkey, then he clutches onto me like his life depends on it. He whispers to me about how I'm his favorite teacher and how he wishes he could come be in my new class, and he shouts "MISS NIKKI!" down the hall whenever he catches a glimpse of me walking away. When the busses were loading this afternoon, he grabbed the hands of two of my new students who happen to be on his shuttle, and he guided them around the gym because "they are Miss Nikki's girls, so they are my girls." (He could just be a little ladies' man in training, but I prefer to think he does it because he adores me.) As he and his two girlfriends headed out to the bus, I heard him scream my name down the hall. Our new principal's name is Nicky, so she assumed he was saying goodbye to her. Oh, no. "Not you! Where is my Miss Nikki?! Goodbyeeeeeeeee, Miss Nikki!" I.love.him.

In all seriousness though, I've been particularly whiny these past few days, and I just can't seem to quiet all the hateful sounds in my head. You don't have to worry about sending me to therapy; they're not audible voices. Just your average, run-of-the-mill self-deprecating thoughts. I know I'm not the only one who can't control the onslaught once the floodgates are open, and suddenly I'm convinced I'm a failure at absolutely everything.

You weren't good enough for him, and you'll never be good enough for anyone.
You're an awful kindergarten teacher.
Those pants fit just fine two weeks ago, fatty.
The kids wouldn't be falling asleep if you knew what you were doing.
No one cares if you're sad. Stop whining.
You're a hypocrite. No one's fooled.


Then, of course, I get the one that is the worst kick in the stomach when you're already down:

You really couldn't be any more self-centered. Look at you, only thinking of your own pathetic life.


Fun, right? The thing is, I know all these things are lies. I'm actually a really good kindergarten teacher, I haven't gained any weight, and one guy not wanting to date me doesn't mean I should go out and buy a few dozen cats. Compared to almost every inanimate object, I'm hilarious and charming, and my karaoke skills are probably going to get me a spot on next season's American Idol. There are tons of good things about me (I can think of at least two - no, three! - off the top of my head), but I feel ridiculously vain writing them out.

On a related note, the next article I'm working on for Relevant is about how hating yourself doesn't make you humble, and that it's okay to think you're likable. It's going to basically be a letter to myself, but I'd venture I'm not the only one in the world who struggles with this.

On an unrelated note, my new littles are rough around the edges. I thought the other teachers were exaggerating when they said my babies wouldn't be able to hold pencils or pull their own pants up in the bathroom, but it's all gloriously true. Today while I was reading my kids a story, Rachel burst into tears. She's cried a few times, so I fought rolling my eyes as I jumped out of my chair to console her. I asked what happened, and she showed me her hand. There were tiny teeth prints in it, so I asked who bit her. She pointed to herself. She - bit - herself. Read that again, slowly. She - bit - herself, then sobbed uncontrollably. Uh, what?

Oh and here's a good story: yesterday afternoon, one of the parents brought me a present. This happens a lot; the parents here think you'll like their kids more if they bring you expensive, jewel-filled pens. When the mom handed me the present, though, I realized it said "from Nikki Teacher" on it, instead of "for." I made the politest confused face I could, and she explained that I was to give it to her son as a welcome to the class. Therefore, I had to make a huge scene to present this little boy with some kind of game I couldn't read, which he promptly tossed aside, telepathically telling me to try harder next time. I wonder if there's just no word for "spoiled" in Korean?

A new batch of k-babies

Tomorrow morning, I'll be starting a new school year with a new set of students. My kids will still be in the school, but it's going to be so hard to not be teaching these little faces every day:

Last Friday, on our last day as Opal Class, we spent much of the day having a dance party. If you've been around the blog for a while, you'll know I fill a lot of time with dancing. You would, too, if this is the kind of dancing you got to witness:

Jealous? You should be. Here's the link to Dave's ESL Cafe. You'll thank me later.

Some love from K-land

Happy Valentine's Day from Korea... and Justin Bieber.

Love like you mean it, friends. <3

A lesson in romance

It has recently been brought to my attention that I haven't posted on here in two weeks. Considering the fact that I used to post almost daily, this is quite a crime! I'm going to blame it on the fact that as the days roll on, things feel more normal. I can read Korean pretty fast now, so I'm not confused by much, and I've seen so many weird blue soaps that they (almost) don't make me laugh anymore. I know that sounds kind of depressing, but I promise it's not. I like that I'm comfortable here, and I like that life isn't really all that overwhelming anymore.

On top of that, I went on a really stellar trip last week with my friends Angie and Bonnie. We headed down to the opposite end of the country (a whopping 5 hour train ride away) and explored the far end of the Korean Peninsula. Although there were no sexy Australians requesting my hand in marriage, I did get a boyfriend, and I was followed around an aquarium by some camera-happy creepsters. Okay, so I have some funny stories I could tell. I'll get on that.

Today I'm still at work (obviously earning my paycheck by writing things online), so I'm going to save the Grand Busan Adventure for... next time I'm not super busy? Before I leave. Promise. Anyway, you're getting a short post today, but hopefully it'll make you chuckle. If not, you're dead inside.

I'm not a huge fan of Valentine's Day, but as a kindergarten teacher, I have an obligation to promote the crap out of Hallmark's "make everyone who's single feel even lonelier" day. Yesterday, we read a cutesy little Valentine story and made cards, and today I asked them to write a journal entry about what they would do to make their Valentine feel special. This one was by far my favorite, and I bet you'll be able to guess why.

I think Valentine feel like a girl's day. Valentine day feel special because we have chocolete party. And, we eat the chocolets. Girls feel very special because the boys gave girls a presents. And, the boys can give some money. Then the girls say, "Thank you!"

Did you read that, guys? You have to give girls a presents. And money. You can send it to my PayPal account if that's most convenient for you.

After journal time, I decided to put these "gifted" kids to the test and get them to write romantic poetry. We read a few poems I found online, and I told them to come up with a list of rhyming words to start them out. Then I let them loose. Keep in mind, my kids are about six. When I was six, I probably still ate glue. Take that, American education system.

Here are some of the best and brightest, spelling errors and all:

Japan is like the Papan.

hair is a tair
nice is nikki
it is fun
and it is mikki

I fold a paper.
and it is fun
my favorite
friend is Sun

Angels are beutifull
they have wings
there mission is
get the beutifulest ring

Eat the tomato
In the Toronto
then eat potato
more photos for you.

It is a night
insects are afraid of the bat.
then there is "quik, quik" sound
It was time for dinner for rat

The boy sleeped.
he had a dream and he dreamed about bed.
the knight fought with the bad dragon.
that moment, the children are learning about red.

I don't know about you, but if a guy presented me with any one of these poems, I'd be one smitten kitten.

Little cultural side note: in Korea, Valentine's Day is for girls to give presents to guys. A month later - a full month! - the guys reciprocate on "White Day." Therefore, if guys have any lick of sense, they'll all take their presents (money?) and bolt before March 14th. I've heard there's also a "Black Day" to celebrate desperation and sadness. Korea's all about the fun when it comes to romance.

They'll call me freedom

Last week, my class had to create a piece of artwork for the GATE Art Gallery (which is aptly described with the acronym GAG). Getting ten six-year-olds to all sit in chairs at the same time is a feat; getting them to all work together on an art project is nothing short of a miracle.

My new coteacher went to school for design, so she's very artsy. I asked her two weeks ago for ideas, and she said whatever I did would be fine. I asked her a week and a half ago for ideas, and she said whatever I did would be fine. I asked her a week ago for ideas, and she said whatever I did would be fine. With her full support behind me, I designed a project and began to execute its creation.

I spent an hour having the kids tear up paper for my "collage" before my coteacher finally realized what I was doing. She looked at it like you would look at a homemade pillow made by a preschooler out of your favorite dress; you appreciate the creativity and thoughtfulness, but it's really quite a train wreck.

Therefore, when she took over, I didn't mind in the slightest. If a picture is worth a thousand words, I'd rather write you four thousand words to get out of drawing the picture. My coteacher took over trying to salvage the project I had started, and I did what I do best: entertained the kids with a dance party.

I usually try to play things I know the kids have heard before, but sometimes they surprise me by knowing pretty obscure songs. This time, I was beyond delighted.

Clearly, they're singing this:

I couldn't love these kids more if they pooped sunshine.

Ain't no valley low enough

My kids talk a lot. I mean, they're six. But today when I heard a tiny voice while I was trying to explain setting, I didn't go off the handle and tell it to quiet down. That's because the little voice sounded like this:

I have no idea where a six-year-old in Korea learned that song, but I'm so very glad he did. I stopped class right there and had a dance party. Here's the original in case you're in the mood to boogie too :)

<3

A few of my favorite things

Because tonight was our Christmas concert, the kids and I didn't have to be at school until 3 PM. I slept in, watched a few episodes of Community, then talked to Smelly on Skype. Thus far, I've done an incredible job of pretending to not be homesick on camera. I've cried for a few other reasons, but I always make sure to never show even an ounce of regret over my decision to move to the ROK. Today, however, I failed miserably. As Michelle told me about her plans for New Year's Eve and other events going on at home, I just couldn't handle pretending to be happy anymore. In that moment (and thousands of others these past few weeks), I just wanted to be at home, and I knew I couldn't be, and that tore me to pieces.

Fortunately, I didn't have a lot of time to be homesick. I had to pull myself together and get ready for work so I could look like the cookie-cutter white American the parents pay good money to parade in front of their children. I got dressed, stopped at my favorite Paris Baguette to get a snack, and headed in to see my babies.

The kids arrived shortly after I did, and my new co-teacher and I got them all set up for their final dress rehearsal. They look crazy-cute in their costumes, so I snapped a few pictures of them before we headed down to the gym.

And then when we got to the gym, I, uh... went a little crazy with the pictures. I won't make you look at all of them; I know that they're my munchkins and therefore I'm the only one who really wants to look at a hundred pictures of them standing on a stage, but I'm still going to make you look at some because it's my blog and I do what I want.

After the rehearsal, the kids and I returned to the room to kill time while the parents arrived and took their seats. I had set out some pictures for the kids to color in case the parents came in to check on them, but it quickly became apparent that no one really cared what we were doing. So we did this:

When the time finally came to herd my tiny people down to the stage, we lined up and marched to the gym. They took the stage while I manned the music, and they performed their concert so very well. I made videos of, um, all the songs, but yet again, I know that no one else is as obsessed with them as I am, so I'll only post one.

In case you're curious, they're signing along to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, courtesy of yours truly (and some help from Rosie since I'm not actually that good at ASL). We've been practicing it for the last three months, and they were spectacular. They did a wonderful job on all their songs, and I was so ridiculously proud of them.

After the concert, the parents provided food and drinks, and we all stood around to "mingle." I don't know if you've ever tried to mingle with a room full of people who don't speak a lot of English, but it's a tiny bit challenging. Basically, Kelly and I stood huddled together, watching the kids stuff their faces with sugar then run laps around the building. In the middle of the dinner, the mommies presented me with a present. They gave me some crazy expensive shampoo and conditioner, a gift certificate to a mall I can hardly afford to stand next to, and a hand-made card from the kids. The card contained a message from each of my babies...

"Ms. Nikki sorry for not listening to you. Robin"

"To. Ms. Nikki, I wish you could have a merry christmas. I love you. from Sun"

"Nikki Teacher Merry Christmas I love you Nikki. Because, I love present and singing to. from: EunYool"

"Dear Miss Nikki, you great and I presheted (translation: appreciate) you and Merry Christmas. evelyn"

"To Miss Nikki, can you wear red coat that I will be really happy and I will say wow to you. Brian"

"Dear Ms. Nikki. You are a good American and you are a good teacher. from David"

Can you guess which present I loved the most? I might have started crying. Okay, so I cried a lot. You would have too.

Warning: this post is about to get stupid sappy. Stop reading if you have a weak stomach.

As you've read in my last few posts, I've not been having the best time the past few weeks. I still love my life here (for the most part), but things have gotten kind of hard. I didn't expect to have to defend my character to the woman who hired me. I didn't expect to get to the point where seeing "Procter & Gamble" on my toothpaste tube would make me tear up. And I didn't expect to have to have an evacuation bag packed just in case we got bombed. When I look ahead to my future, I always see it as a movie montage of all the high points, but I forget that real life is a lot messier than the movies. Sometimes you get really sick, and sometimes you're in a bad mood, and sometimes you get your heart broken, and sometimes you forget why you're doing any of the things you're doing at all. And then you crack a joke and one of your kids responds, "Teacher, are you being facetious?" - because you taught him that word! - and it suddenly all seems worth it.

Teaching is really hard. I knew that when I was in the thick of student teaching, and that's why I gave up on it. If you look back on my journal from that semester, you can literally watch my spirit die as the weeks progress, and there's a letter at the end to the Eaton High School class of 2008 that blames them wholeheartedly for killing my dream of wanting to be a teacher. Aside from clearly being too melodramatic for my own good, I truly thought that would be the end of my attempt at being an educator. I've known a lot of people to judge teachers for having such "easy" jobs, but being responsible for the psychological and emotional well-being of dozens of children is a ridiculously daunting task. Unless you've actually spent time in a classroom, I don't think you can really know how frustrating and maddening and discouraging it can be to listen to yourself say the same things over and over and over and over until you're not sure if "getyourfingeroutofyournose" is actually a sentence.

But teaching is also the most rewarding job I could possibly imagine.

When the kids were on the stage, every parent in the audience had a camera zoomed in on one individual kid, but I stood in the back and watched them all. I knew which ones shimmied the best during "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" and which ones would giggle when they tried to say their lines. I knew which ones couldn't keep their costumes from falling off to save their lives and which ones always slipped in their tap shoes. The parents each had one child to be proud of, but I had eleven. Every single one of those kids on that stage made me so ridiculously proud tonight, and I can't imagine ever dedicating my life to anything other than this. I'll say it again: teaching is hard. It's harder than you can possibly imagine to give every part of yourself to a room full of typically ungrateful little kids. It's frustrating to spend weeks trying to convince your kids it's a "quarter" not a "quater" then have to defend your own credentials to someone who has never spent even a full minute watching you teach. But the high I'm on from watching those kids tonight could get me through a dozen unfounded accusations from my crazy boss. Yeah, I deal with a lot of crap here. But this is what I see every morning when I come in:

and that makes it all worth it.

One last thought. People always talk about how you don't fully understand God's love for his children until you have children of your own. I kind of always put that in the "I'll experience that later" file in my mind, hoping that one day I'd understand what people meant by that. Tonight I think I got a little glimpse of it. If the way I love these children isn't even close to how much their parents love them, and in turn that's insignificant compared to how much my God loves me... then I'm humbled beyond words at how much I'm adored. If looking at those little faces can literally bring joyful tears to my eyes, then how much more am I loved by the God who designed and created me? It'll take a whole lifetime to understand it, I think, but I know it's beautiful.

Tis the season

My kiddos have been working really hard on their Christmas concert, but I haven't had the chance to pop down to the gym to see them practicing. Today, we rehearsed their lines during class, and they asked if they could "tap". Well, sure, small ones! Tap your little hearts out!

Now if that doesn't put you in the Christmas spirit, I don't know what will :)

They've also been working on something special courtesy of Rosie, youtube, and yours truly, but I'm waiting to show you that one until closer to Christmas. Don't worry; it'll be worth the wait.

Speaking of waiting... there's a certain movie that's being released pretty much worldwide this weekend. Why "pretty much" worldwide? Because Korea is quite possibly the lamest country on the planet and isn't releasing it until December 16. Those a-holes over at Warner Brothers can't stop this girl from seeing Deathly Hallows on the big screen opening weekend... but you're going to have to wait until Monday to read more about that. In the meantime, here's a trailer.

I might be drooling. Don't judge.

You can call me Nikki Teacher

I didn't move to Korea for the job. I mean, I did, because I wouldn't have moved here just to be unemployed and homeless, but I really didn't want to teach. When I graduated from college, I adamantly avoided working in a classroom - despite the fact that I had teacher roommates, teacher best friends, and a teaching license. I have a whole list of reasons for not wanting to teach, but they can all pretty much be summed up by saying that I was too afraid to fail. If I fail at putting books on a shelf in the proper order, the world really won't come crashing to an end. But if I fail at loving children and teaching them how to be caring, functioning adults, then I could be single-handedly responsible for creating the next Hitler. That seemed like far too big a risk for someone as prone to screwing up as I am, so I told myself I would never teach.

Yet here I sit, in a classroom in Seoul, wondering how the heck I got here. Even more, though, I'm wondering how I ever thought I could do something other than teach and be fulfilled. (I can hear your "I told you so" all the way over here so zip it.) Are there times when I get so frustrated I literally think I might explode? Heck yes. Fortunately, the times when my heart feels like it grew three sizes outnumber those times ten to one, and that's why I keep going.

I don't really have anything more to say, but I wanted to share some stories about things that make my job totally fantastic. Some of them are funny while some are sweet, but all of them together have led me to realize that four little wooden tables and a dry erase board make up my favorite room in all of Korea.

• I had to use my free period to sub for another teacher who was out sick. We're doing the same lessons, so it wasn't a big deal aside from the fact that I didn't get to play on facebook for that hour like I usually do. I read the story with Meghan's kids and they filled out their workbooks lightning fast, so I let them draw pictures (don't tell Korea!). When the bell rang, one little girl skipped up to me, handed me a folded piece of paper, turned pink, and scampered off. Inside, she had drawn a picture of her holding my hand inside a big heart, and she wrote "Miss Nikki I love you!" in huge letters across the top. I'd been in the class for 45 minutes and she already adored me. Picking up this willingness to love others and express it wouldn't be the worst thing that's ever happened to my personality.
• Earlier this week, my new student had an accident... all over the classroom floor. This was something I'd honestly never dealt with; when I worked at the daycare, all the kids wore diapers, and when I student taught in a high school, most of those kids wore diapers too. Due to our language barrier, it took me a while to figure out what he was telling me, but as soon as it clicked in my mind that there was urine all over my floor, I leapt into action. I told all the kids to drag the tables onto the rug and sit under them while I went to find the janitor to mop up the tile. As soon as the kids were in place, it occurred to me that my limited Korean skills (hello, thank you, and grapes) wouldn't get the point across. Hana wasn't around, so I snatched the hand of my smartest student and took off down the hall. We literally ran everywhere in the school, looking in classrooms and storage closets, but we couldn't find the janitor anywhere. The school secretary was in the bathroom, so Evelyn and I both frantically told her what was going on. She tracked down the janitor and sent her to the room where Evelyn explained our predicament. I walked around the room, pointing out wet spots, and Evelyn trotted along behind me, pointing them out again (I think my hand gestures would have translated just fine, but you can never be too sure). I had Evelyn ask for a cleaner, hoping to get bleach or some kind of disinfectant, and the janitor sent her down to get the bottle out of the closet. When she came back, she handed me a bottle of Febreze and the janitor nodded. It was the most disgusting and stressful moment I've had all week, but really, how can you not laugh? WTF, Korea? Febreze? Oy vey.
• We've been having trouble regulating the heat in our classroom now that it's getting chilly out, so our room fluctuates from being an ice box to a sauna without warning throughout the day. I had an extra sweater on just in case, so when the room reached equator-like temperatures, I ripped it off and asked the kids if they were hot too. Brian hopped up out of his seat and shouted, "I am buuuuuurning like the fire, Teacher!" The other kids literally fell out of their chairs they were laughing so hard.
• The pencil sharpeners here are adorable; they're shaped like little houses or trucks, and they're ridiculously brightly colored. I was a tiny bit obsessed when I got here, but all in all, they just scrape wood off of pencils. The other day, I watched a little boy in Meghan's class sharpening his pencil. When he pulled it out, his eyes got huge and his whole face lit up. "Woah! Teacher, it's like magic!" New goal: obtain child-like joy and never let it go.
• During fairy tales, I always draw the story we read on the board. The kids usually laugh at my stick figures (I add triangle dresses and squiggly hair to denote females, of course), but my subpar drawings generally suffice. Today, I drew a shoemaker with a funny hat, then the kids told me I needed to draw his wife. I scribbled my standard girl on the board, and I heard a slow clap starting behind me. I turned around, and Brian was on his feet, smacking his hands together in the most proper way possible. "That is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen," he said, drawing out each syllable like he was the first person to ever lay eyes on the Sistine Chapel.

I have some quotes too that are hilarious but don't really merit a whole story:

Evelyn: Miss Hana is very pretty and you are just so crazy. She will always steal your boyfriends. She will have so many husbands and you will have none.

Robin: When I was a baby, my daddy killed bad people.
Me: Is your daddy a police officer?
Robin: No.
Me: Is your daddy Batman?
Robin: No!
Me: Are you sure?
Robin: ... no...

Miss Joann: I asked you to draw a picture of an animal that starts with a "b". What did you draw?
Bella: Egg.

David: How do you spell "Imperial"?
Me: Why?
David: I am drawing the Star Wars.

Me: Who is the tooth fairy?
Brian: She comes in during the night and cuts out your tongue.

To sum up: The school gave me a few of the pictures from the field trip (service-ee!), and I was flipping through them with Hana. She started thinking out loud about how the kids probably aren't going to remember us in twenty years, and I literally teared up. I'm never going to forget the goofy little Asian kids who make my working hours just as much fun as my free time, and I really need to work harder to make sure I'm soaking up every second I've got with them.

Also, I'd give every penny I'll ever make in my life if I could keep Brian. He drives the other teachers absolutely up the wall, but seriously, I'd give the kid a kidney if he needed one. Hell, I'd steal a kidney right out of another human being if that's what he requested. I'm totally wrapped around his little finger, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

An entire week in a single post

Last night, I tried to post half of this so that it wouldn't be so unbearably long tonight, but blogger refused to upload the video I wanted. I very rationally threw a hissy fit and deleted the whole post.

On an unrelated note, it's probably about time I found out whether Korea sells Midol.

This week I've experienced emotions the way Ohio experiences weather - every extreme you can possibly imagine within the span of about thirty minutes. Feeling things is positively exhausting, and I'm sort of resenting God for not making me a robot. R2D2 never had this problem.

Anyway, I'm going to spare you all the depressing details and skip right through to the joyful moments. Don't worry; I'm not bottling up everything negative. I completely fell apart at church last night, crying, shaking, the whole nine yards, and I'm feeling a million times better now (Quick shout out to Kristen, who held my hand and listened to the melodramatic exaggerations of trouble I completely brought upon myself. God was showing off when he gave me you as a friend.)

I spent most of last weekend with Hana, who is easily one of my favorite people in all of Asia. Her parents invited me over for dinner at their, ahem, second home in the country, and I was beyond honored. It's a really big deal here for people to invite you into their homes, so being asked over for dinner was huge. Don't worry, America, I represented you well.

The whole way there, Hana was musing about what English her parents would try on me. They both know tons more English than I know Korean, but Hana said they were both really shy about talking to foreigners. When we arrived, Hana's dad threw the door open and declared, "Welcome to our home!" with a huge grin on his face. Hana nearly died laughing, and he looked so ridiculously proud of himself that I couldn't help but smile too. He presented me with some slippers to wear in the house and promptly disappeared.

Hana took me around for a tour, and oh my gosh is their house gorgeous. They only live there on the weekends, so I suppose that helps keep it tidy, but it looked like a model home. There were no knick-knacks anywhere, and they hardly had any pictures hanging up. There wasn't a single item out of place on any of the three floors, and I kind of felt like I needed to be more dressed up just to be there. And they had two of the biggest tvs I've ever seen in my life.

Dinner was served shortly after I got there. Hana's mom had been worrying all week about what to cook for me, and I tried to assure her that I would gladly try absolutely anything put in front of me. She was still really eager to please me, so she made all the foods Hana had told her that I liked, which I'm betting didn't really go together at all. Everything I eat feels 100% random (they serve pickles with pizza here, like as a side dish), so I didn't know any better, but I kind of wonder if our meal was the equivalent of having tuna casserole, pancakes, and cole slaw at the same time. Since the meal had been prepared for me, I loved everything on the table - especially the potato soup (remember this fact). Every time I'd finish my soup, Hana's dad would pop up out of his chair and refill my bowl. I'm pretty sure I ate a gallon of the stuff by the time the night was over. Additionally, about halfway through the meal, Hana remembered that I drink an embarrassing amount of water and told her parents about our restaurant excursions. Hana's dad took Hana's glass and gave it to me instead, then he slid the pitcher over in front of me with a huge smile on his face.

Hana worked as a translator to somebody super-fancy before she came to work at Gate, so she had no trouble keeping up conversation. It was so much fun talking to her parents; her mom is precious and soft-spoken, and her dad is hilarious. Out of nowhere, he would tell me that I'm beautiful, but then he'd point to Hana's mom and say, "but not as much as my wife." Hana's mom apologized that her English is "too broken for using," and she mainly just listened to the rest of us talk. Every once in a while, she'd lean over to Hana and whisper something. Hana always translated for me (despite the fact that her mom clearly didn't want me to know what she was saying), and it was always the same: "Are you sure she is American? She is too skinny!" Le sigh.

After dinner, Hana and I went to the basement to watch an English movie (hooray!). As soon as we got the movie started, Hana's mom appeared in the doorway and told Hana that we needed to come upstairs. We whined and moaned, having just made ourselves comfortable, but obliged. When we got to the top of the stairs, Hana's dad looked right at me and said, "You are VIP guest! No basement for you!" before heading off into the basement himself.

Hanging out with Hana's parents might have been one of my favorite nights in Korea thus far. True, her parents and I had a hard time making conversation, but the evening as a whole felt so ridiculously normal. I was curled up on a couch (I don't think I've been on a couch in over six weeks) watching a movie and eating snacks with my friend, and I felt so relaxed. I've had a lot of really fun adventures, but there's just something about having a sleepover at a friend's parents' house that makes me feel safe and happy.

In the morning, Hana's mom made breakfast and her dad set the table. This is what I found at my seat:

Yeah, that's two plastic jugs of milk, a bottle of juice, a pitcher of water, and three glasses. I couldn't stop laughing, but he just walked away like serving a guest every liquid in the refrigerator is standard practice. His jokes made me a little sad... they reminded me very much of my own daddy's sense of humor, and my daddy's a million miles away. Nevertheless, it was hysterical and the sentiment behind it was very kind.

Also, please note that there's a clear bowl sitting behind the drinks. That's a bowl of potato soup, made especially for my enjoyment since I had consumed so much of it at dinner. Hana's dad set the bowl in front of me like it was a crown jewel, and every time I'd finish what I had in my little bowl, he'd hop right up and refill it. I had four bowls of potato soup for breakfast, along with a million other things on the table. I think Hana's mom made it her personal mission to get me to look more properly American.

Hana and I packed up all of our things to head to Everland. On our way out the door, Hana's dad threw his arms out in the air and said, "I hope you will come back every day! You make my house smile!"

Note: This post is really, really long. Maybe you should go make yourself a snack and come back. I'll wait for you.

So, Everland. Everland is basically the Korean version of Disney World, so obviously I was excited out of my mind. We got there pretty soon after they opened, and Hana practically had us running to the roller coaster in the back of the park. When we got there, the line was hours and hours long, so we waited for a Q Pass (think Disney Fast Pass) so we could come back later and skip the line. Once our Q Passes were safely stowed in Hana's purse, we headed out to explore the park.

This place was so stinkin' cute it's not even funny.

We spent a whole day there, and I'm already kind of going cross-eyed from staring at my computer for so long, so you're going to only get the highlights.

I'm a pretty obvious foreigner. I'm way too tall, my clothes are ridiculously bright, and my hair is blond and curly as all get out. I've gotten used to all the attention, but Hana isn't at all. About once every hour, a bold little boy would run up to me and shout "helllllll-oooooo!" I'd smile and ask his name or how he was doing, and he'd respond either "good marning!" or "good ap-ter-noon!" depending solely on which was his favorite phrase, not at all on the time of day. I'd repeat it back to him, and he'd giggle uncontrollably and run back to his friends. This happens to me all the time, but Hana's never seen it before; every time it occurred, she'd just watch the exchange and shake her head. Finally, she asked me why my powers don't draw in any boys over the age of ten. Sweetheart, if I knew that, I wouldn't be paying for my own dinners all the time.

The roller coaster (which I affectionally called T-Money because it had the orange and red T on the side of it), was the absolute greatest roller coaster I've been on in my life. It has an 80-degree drop, and I read somewhere that it's the tallest roller coaster in the world. Hana was shaking almost the whole way up to it, and I thought she was going to throw up before it even started moving. By the end, I was bouncing in my seat, yelling "again! again!" and she had tears running down her face. She looked me right in the eye and said, very seriously, "Do you see how deep our friendship is?" I tilted my head to the side. "Again?" I thought her head might explode.

At the end of the night, we were both exhausted. Hana's parents had offered to pick us up and drive us back into Seoul, but we had to wait for them to fight through traffic to get to the gate. We sat down and talked about (what else?) boys and relationships, and she taught me about Korean boyfriends. Apparently, they all carry their girlfriends' bags. If they don't, she claimed, they're not a very good guy and not worth dating. I told her that in America, you can walk down the street with a couch strapped to your back, and it'd be a miracle if a guy offered to help. (Obviously I'm kidding here. I'm already planning a post about how much I miss chivalry in a culture where men are valued way above their stiletto-wearing counterparts.) We watched all the couples who walked by and assessed the state of their relationship based on whether the girl had ahold of her own purse. Also, I counted ELEVEN couples outfits. I'm pretty sure making fun of that particular fad will never get old.

Overall, the weekend was incredible. I have a ton more pictures that I'll eventually post on facebook, but I'm lazy tonight. :)

Before I go, I have one more thing I've been dying to post. My kids have "Good Neighbors" lessons once a week. The school provides powerpoints on random things about being a good human, from generosity to non-profits to interacting with people with disabilities. Last week, we learned about Braille, and my kids memorized the alphabet so fast it was disgusting. I resorted to writing Spanish sentences in Braille on the board just to try to trip them up, but to no avail. My kids are intellectual monsters and sometimes I'm afraid they'll realize they're infinitely smarter than their college-educated teacher and fully execute a well-designed coup. Actually, that'd be the greatest story ever and I kind of hope it happens.

Anyway...

So this week we learned ASL (side note, I think it's funny that I was supposed to teach the kids about American Sign Language, but the powerpoint never once mentioned Korean Sign Language. I mean, they have one too, and it's completely different. I feel like it deserves at least some attention.) I know a fair bit of ASL; I'm not nearly as good as I was junior year of college, but I'm certainly better than the tiny ones. I taught them the alphabet, their names, and some basic phrases. They looked a little like their muscles were spasming out of control, but we were laughing and having a great time. It took less than two seconds for me to decide I wanted to show them this:

Seriously, you have to watch that video or the rest of the post won't make a bit of sense. Also, how can you not watch? Stephen Torrence is hands down (hehe, get it? because he signs!) the cutest boy on the planet. My life mission is to find and marry him asap. For reals.

The first time the kids saw the video, they stared in awe. My signing is nowhere near as fast as his (nor am I as charming to watch), so they were completely blown out of the water by the whole thing. When it ended, they demanded to see it again. Okay-twist-my-arm... let's watch it five more times. By time class was over, the kids had picked up some of the signs and were starting to sing along. You don't even have to ask - here's the video:

(Note: I know it starts out slow, but I promise you that around the eighteen second mark, 
your life is going to get infinitely better. Seriously.)

No matter how many ups and downs I've had in my week, it's nearly impossible to throw myself a pity party when that's what I get to come to work to every single day. Yesterday during lunch, Brian climbed up in my lap and snuggled into me. Evelyn yelled over to him to tell him to come play with everyone else, but he shouted back, "I can't play right now. I'm sitting with Miss Nikki because she's my favorite girl."

That's joy, friends.