Fireworks

They take too damn long. The first one let's everyone know they're going to start then the next few are like "Oooh pretty!" and then the crowd quiets down and just stares at the smoke lit up by purple, green, gold, or red lights. Almost never blue. And at first I enjoy it.

Then they go up and burst and go up and burst and go up and burst and then three go up at once and burst and I get bored. Even with variety, they're mostly just more of the same. The frogs were cool and there was a smiley face and one pair that even hung in the air for a minute and I asked Australia how they did that and he just said, "Physics" and England and I had a laugh at how he thought that was a good enough explanation.

There were three or five displays. Maybe four, I don't know. They had weird pauses and we weren't sure if they were actual breaks between the teams or just dead air. And what we thought was dead air was actually a low-level display that we couldn't see behind the bridge. While waiting for the next bang, Australia told us how he's still paranoid that Joyce-teacher hates him because once a killer hornet came into the office and he asked her, "That's the hornet that if it stings you, it'll die, right?" (this was during one of my breaks back when I still had breakSSSSSSS) and Joyce said "I don't know," then walked away and whispered to Scary-teacher, "I hope you die," talking about Australia. He had to have misheard her. Then we got on the subject of how Joyce-teacher once said she's learning Chinese so she could meet a rich Chinese man and marry him. She was joking, we think. I said she should just hang around the casinos during a baccarat tournament because the Chinese love bending the cards for no reason.

Australia responded, "No one at a casino wants to marry you."

England jumped in with, "You hear that, Harrison? No one at a casino wants to marry YOU!"

Australia is a bit clueless about what he says sometimes. It's good for a laugh.

Anyway, an hour and a half of fireworks is too much. The finale should've been the second display.  

Competition

My wife has some competition. She's Asian and six. Not actually competition. But I was in the middle of typing up a bi-monthly exam on Friday when one of the kinder girls walked in with her friend, who she's always attached to by the hand, and they're both giggling. They're both cute, smart, well-behaved girls and one is my current favorite (Jerry aside). She's so adorable the way she acts out every line of the musical while sat in her seat. She gets a real kick out of it when I join in on the dancing. Last month's musical was Stone Soup and one of the songs goes "Put in the salt and pepper. Add the onions and carrots. Then put in a big fat chicken" And the dance for that is pretending to hold a giant chicken then dumping it in and they already find it a funny motion but when Teacher does it, it's hysterical. Fits of laughter. People fall from chairs. They stifle their laughter between tiny fingers splat against their face. And she always knows her lines, always speaks in English, and always encourages the other students to behaves. She also never asks to go to Desk-teacher for a bandaid or to go to the bathroom. She's a great little kid and dressed in a sophisticated way, as sophisticated as six-year-old Korean kids can dress without looking like a doll.

Anyway, she comes into the library giggling like I've just tossed a great big chicken into the soup and I'm asking, "What's so funny, Rachel?" She tries to tell me but she can't get it out and she covers her mouth and when she uncovers it to try again, only more laughter comes. Literally five minutes of this goes on.

Then Maya-teacher comes in with a bit of a laugh herself and asks her, "Rachel, did you say?" She's laughing too hard to answer so Maya-teacher asks me, "Did she say?"

"She's just been giggling since she came in."

"Rachel! Say what you say to me!"

"Harrson-teacher..." They never pronounce that middle syllable. "I love you, Harrison-teacher!"

She dashes from the room, dragging her best friend, and Maya-teacher and I are having a laugh about it and I ask why she said that and Maya-teacher explained they were talking about their favorite teachers in class and Rachel just said that about me suddenly.

Then musical class came and we just started a new Halloween musical, The Haunted Halloween House, and I put off assigning parts the first day because someone always cries. Everyone wants the princess or pretty girl or something, but there are always too many boy parts and there are only three boys in that class. So someone always cries. Usually Rose and Olivia. Even when they get good parts, they want two good parts. Or they want to be paired up on a part with a friend.

Rachel got Tom. Generally Rachel gets bad parts because I let kids draw numbers from a hat and she'll often switch with some crier because she doesn't mind a bad part like Tom. She's generally happy with whatever and I usually give her a second part that's at least a girl but I think she'd be happy even if I didn't do that. She's really a great kid.

But Friday, she nearly cried. I even had an open part that was a girl and I tried giving her that or the main role of the Lonely Ghost, but she just shook her head with her eyes down, leaking a bit. Normally if a kid cries, I feel bad the first time, but when it happens regularly, I just let them cry without trying to help because Rose and Olivia use it to manipulate the teacher and surely others do too.  But Rachel never cries and she never complains and she's always good and I felt awful that she was crying and trying to placate her by switching parts wasn't working.

Finally I asked if she wanted to be Paul. She seemed reluctant to admit she wanted that part because she seemed, as much as a six-year-old can, too proud to manipulate someone with tears, but she nodded that she did want to be Paul. Someone else was already Paul, though. Melissa, Rachel's best friend who she's always attached by the hand.

So now I have two Pauls and a kid who can't read playing the Lonely Ghost and Lola playing Tom. But at least Rachel wasn't hurt by the day. She was even smiling and happy by lunch as she and Melissa, attached at the hands, blocked the stairway so I couldn't head home for lunch because they wanted me to eat with them. 

How Many Steps?

I heard once that you're supposed to take 5,000 steps a day to be heart healthy. I'm not sure I always take 5,000 in a week lately. My apartment is a minute from the school and the grocery store is 30 seconds from the store and I take an efficient path to the ramen and water and yogurt and whatever else is on my list. I waste no steps. But maybe I should because I don't walk too much otherwise. I don't need to! Sometimes I explore on the weekend, but I know the area and don't need to head beyond the area. And walking to the bus station or to the boxing gym adds some distance, but not enough. I really worry about how little I walk! I probably sound nuts.

So I'm going to try to go for an hour-long walk each night. I timed how long it took me to take 100 steps tonight. About 50 seconds at a comfortable pace. I did the math. I need to walk about 45 minutes a day to get my 5,000 steps. I can do that. I went to the KTX station tonight, the high speed rail, and then turned around.

But I literally just turned around. I got to the top of the steps, surrounded by people coming back from Seoul or headed to Gwanju or wherever, and I just did a 180 turn and went back the way I just came. I got pretty self-conscious at this point. I thought people were watching me, wondering, "Why's that waygook just turning around? Did he forget something at home?" Of course, they're wondering this in Korean.

Then I got to my apartment building and it had only been about 40 minutes so I decided to lap the neighborhood. But some lady was standing outside my apartment. She had seen me. She'd see me again when I completed the lap. Why does this worry me?!

I shoved those thoughts down long enough to do a lap but I had really hoped it'd take longer than five minutes. So I wanted to do another lap. But the lady was still there. And she was looking at me. She was probably staring like most Koreans do because I'm a foreigner (and so damn handsome!) but in my head, I was convinced she was getting suspicious of me since she had seen me twice in so little time. If she saw me a third time, she'd probably call the cops! =S

Give it to me straight, Doc. Am I nuts or what? 

Australia

So Australia might be leaving come November 10. His parents come in a few weeks and they already have a flight booked and so to spare them cancellation fees, he's staying at least until then. November 10 is the payday after that so he'd wait till after he could transfer out his funds too.

I knew something was up when I asked him when he wanted to head out to boxing and he was lost in thought. He's normally an aloof and distracted guy, but not that much. And rather than answering, he asked me to get some dinner at Noodles Tree (note the elusive s at the end of Noodles that everyone misses the first few times going there). So we went and ordered udon. I got fried shrimp udon and he got koetsu udon. Both were very heavy meals so it was pretty obvious we weren't going boxing tonight. We'd puke if we tried.

He's usually interesting for conversation. Asks weird questions, has weird opinions, knows weird trivia and I like that. I can ask similar things. He's the closest I have to a friend in Korea so it'd suck if he went (especially since my break time, which already went from 7 breaks per week to 1, would be gone). But if he's not happy with the job, I'm not going to defriend him on Facebook or anything. I'm not happy with the job either but I find it tolerable and it pays well and I'm in a new country that's cheap to live in.

For now anyway. I can think of a few reasons I'd just up and leave without a second thought.

Anyway, I'm walking less than 5 km a week lately so I need to go for a walk tonight. And I'm going to Seoul tomorrow afternoon for a fireworks display with Australia and England. Minnesota and Wisconsin are headed to Seoul for a Killers concert. Fun fact: my boss during college was the aunt of the Killers's bass player. 

Jerrys are my favorite

So in addition to Jerry Seinfeld and Jerome David "JD" Salinger, Dolphin Jerry (that's his class name) joins the ranks of awesome Jerrys. I wrote a little about him before but yesterday was Arts & Crafts and we were making grasshoppers out of some fuzzy wire, googly eyes, and the cardboard roll from toilet paper. The kids all drew on paper and then wrapped it around the TP roll and then taped the ends together in a loop. The roll wouldn't come out on its own, but Jerry took his out and beat the paper shell of a grasshopper to a flattened mess with the roll. It still looked just like a grasshopper just flat and one of the googly eyes had fallen off.

He was enjoying himself so why stop him? He had already made the craft and he just wasn't interested in naming it "Cuty, no, Pinky. What's yours?" "Mine is Mini" "Oh then mine is Mimi!" like all the girls were doing. So I let him have his fun and I even squatted down with him, because he was doing this sat in a corner. I didn't say anything. I just watched. Then he handed me both and mumbled, "It won't go in!" He was whacking the paper shell to stick it back in! XD Too funny, Jerry!

So I slid it back in for him and I asked him if his grasshopper had a name.

"Not grasshopper!"

"It's not?"

"NO!

"What is it?"

"Nothing!"

"Does it have a name anyway?"

"No name! It's nothing!"

"Can I see it?" Of course he let me have it and I flew it around and he quickly tried to grab it away from me as it dive-bombed towards his messy hair.

"Grasshoppers can't fly!" The kid's always yelling or mumbling, but even his yells are barely audible. "It jumps."

"I thought it wasn't a grasshopper."

"It's not. It's nothing." Then he threw it across the room and said, "See? It jumped!" 

Tomorrow, Thursday

Tomorrow, Thursday, is a holiday in Korea. I get the day off from school because bears 15,000 years ago wanted to be human so they prayed to the gods. Then they had babies and their babies were humans and thus Korea was founded.

It's National Foundation Day. Or roughly translated, The Day the Heavens Opened Korea. 

I will spend the day not sleeping in. Sleeping in the afternoon, maybe, and writing evaluations for students. Constant praise that they don't deserve mostly. It's hard to write for the kids who actually deserve praise because I want to be realistic and the ones who deserve praise are mostly those who try really hard but maybe aren't the best. But in order for their praise to stand out I have to exaggerate their accomplishment like I do with those other kids, which means giving them unearned compliments and not an accurate bead on where they are skill-wise and how far they've come since the last evaluation. Writing "You're the absolute best at everything! And yet you always manage to push beyond the limits of what's possible" when really I mean is just "You try very hard and your efforts continue even after mistakes. You try to learn from them but sometimes you still say 'Why' for 'What'. You do all your homework and your handwriting has improved a lot as has your vocabulary but sometimes you still get stuck saying the same phrases for everything. Try to experiment more. You're a good student to have because you don't give me many headaches." 

I'm Not Perfect

I flub a lot when I talk and the kids don't know. Sometimes Louis will do something and I'll blame Neo because Neo usually does that or they sound similar and Neo will feel unjustly hurt, as he should. Sometimes I'll be in a bad mood and something that shouldn't bother me does. Sometimes I forget my book or assign the wrong pages or don't circle homework pages or say the wrong thing or spell something wrong and so on. 

I'm sorry I make mistakes and that I'm flawed in possibly awful ways. Thank you if you see past those or can forgive those.