halloween!

when i was little, a friend of mine had chicken pox on halloween. i thought that there could be nothing more terrible than being sick on halloween. afterall, it only comes once a year. i still feel the same way. i spent my halloween weekend in bed and crawling to my toilet. but it was still good, since i had a rockin' costume and i got to spend the day at school today with the cutest kids on the planet. the best part had to be walking to and from school today dressed like a bat, since koreans don't really celebrate halloween. that or carving a pumpkin and finding it to be full of maggots. one, or the other.

and finally, more fun with video!

bunny rabbit snow white

i am batman

jun's costume

billy's costume

sing for your candy!

i'm not a candy!

smell my feet . . .

stuff that's been happening around here

YES! THANK YOU HAT!

when i got to school this morning wearing my rocktacular new hat
(and, incidentally, a peacoat i bought at a vintage store in daegu),
all the korean teachers cooed at me and said that i was the actress from love story.
they even hummed the song.
and said something about rolling in the snow.
now, i've never seen love story, but thank you new hat! :)

i've still got it!

i had given up on finding any quality yarn in south korea . . .
and then i wandered down an alleyway yesterday
to look at wigs for halloween,
got lost on purpose,
and wound up in yarn heaven!
after getting past language barriers that led the folks in the store to think that i wanted to buy a knit hat and then figuring out the type of yarn i needed and discussing price, yadda yadda . . . the end result . . . voila!


my first hat.

it's a small world after all

last night i met a very tall boy named peter.
peter is from davenport, iowa.
peter went to st. ambrose university in rock island, illinois.
despite this, we had, really, nothing to talk about.
peter is, as rogers would say, a well traveled redneck.
(sigh) at least i'm here keeping it real
for all the good iowa folks back home.

sad movie

1. go here
2. click enter
3. click on the green box where it says "go"
4. scroll down and watch the movie preview

this is one of the reasons i wish
english subtitles were an option
in korean movie theaters

the title of this movie, in korean letters, is sad-uh moo-pee
aka, sad movie

hangulmal arayo! (i understand korean!)

hallelujah! i understand this much korean! yay!
when i first moved into my apartment, i was frightened by the scary male voice coming over a megaphone early every morning that sounded to me something probably like:

"all foreigners stay in your houses! anyone found on the street will be hung by their toenails with the rest of the kim chi!"

or

"warning! warning! gas leak! get your gas masks everyone!"

or

"rabid kitten attack! beware all kitties!"

or

"your building is going to self destruct in 5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . "

this was very unnerving, as you can imagine.
eventually a korean friend of mine explained that really what was being said was:

"watermelons! get your watermelons! $5 watermelons!"

so then, though equally scary sounding, i understood what was going on and didn't feel the need to make the decision to either flee or stay in my apartment at 7 am.

then, this morning, i woke up to the sound of the fruit vendor guy on the street and i UNDERSTOOD what he was saying! oh it was so exciting!
something like:

"here! here are grapes! delicious grapes! $5 grapes!"
"here! here are oranges! delicious oranges! $4 oranges!"
"ladies and gentlemen thank you very much"

what struck me initially was that the voice no longer sounded menacing.
then i realized that it was because i understood what was being said.
it was amazing. it was the same voice, the same words, the same tone, but because i understood it, it no longer sounded scary.

i wonder if english sounds scary to people unfamiliar with any of the sounds.
i wonder if language sounds scary to all babies.

2 months, and i still like my job. yay!

as it turns out, i'm not too crappy of a kindergarten teacher after all. of course, every day is an incredible learning experience. i teach the exact same stuff to two different classes of kids every morning, which means the second class always gets the better deal, of course. for example, in class one i learn that if you want them to pay attention, you can't give them their pencils before they read the instructions, so class two actually reads the instructions and does the worksheet correctly, etc. however, a few weeks ago, i was waiting to get a new set of books for my youngest class and had to wing it the first three days. turns out the three activities i made up on the fly were the exact, exact same three activities that the workbook had, when i finally got them for my class. that made me feel really good. so good in fact, that i learned to use the laminater and made a sign reminding the kids of the correct structure of the english sentence for asking how to spell a word ("how spell = wrong" "how do you spell = right") as well as this science gem:



if anyone asks why you can put your finger through jello or if pudding is a solid or a liquid, they're getting sent to the hallway.

an email i sent to meg about thrift stores that may just be the most intelligent observation i have made yet about south korea

hey meg!

i noticed that you said that you like garage sales and goodwill stores. these are also things that i like a lot and i was really excited to experience them in south korea. except, it turns out they don't have anything of the sort here. i've spent weeks pondering why this should be, and it finally dawned on me that it's because koreans don't throw things away until they are completely trashed and they don't get rid of things that still have the slightest tweak of use in them. in order to have decent garage sales and goodwill stores, you need to be in a society where the citizens get rid of things that may still have some worth to others, and that just doesn't ever happen here. ever. but i like other people's old stuff. it has character! and i'm sure old korean people's stuff has lots of character! there's one store downtown here that pretends to be a thrift store, but anything that looks old and interesting is actually not for sale. this bummed me out, as i made a special trip there to purchase two specific items for my advisors as thank you gifts, and had the funny experience of pacing around the store picking up items, mumbling "how much" in korean, and getting a big fat "yeah i won't sell that to you" from the rather unfriendly lady who works there every time. humph. anything old and with character here is actually very rare and valuable.
this is a situation that i never had thought of before. i've thought that for the excess and wastefulness of american culture to change, we could all shop thrift for clothes and furniture, etc. but now i see that it's not actually true. without excess and wastefulness, there is no thrift! what a sacrifice to make! but i think i'd have to take the loss of excess along with the loss of thrift stores.
korea is quickly becoming a consumerist society and i think that things like thrift stores may be popping up in the near future. apparently stuff has changed a lot in the last ten years, and our generation may have some good clothes to throw out. not that any of that will fit over my ginormous rear end. however, they will probably never have a goodwill. they don't have welfare here. it's sink or swim as far as the government is concerned. and people who sink are really frowned upon by society as a whole. you rarely see homeless people on the street. i have seen maybe 3 all together in all the cities i have been through so far, including seoul. so thrift stores would mainly be there to serve tourists and korean hippies and rastas, and well actually i don't know who would shop there. i don't know the culture well enough to know whether or not it would be taboo for your average joe to shop at a thrift store in korea. hmm . . . this is going to tickle my brain now for the next few days.
so enjoy your goodwill and garage sales! they sure are wonderful in montreal.


:)
erin

nevermind . . .

turns out niki's not a blogger at heart.
she'll still be around though.
peace out homey, niki.

masters of the linguistics

hooray! mcgill has finally approved my graduation. whew!
yay! it feels good to be a master. of the universe. :)

my favorite game

name: graveyard

rules: lay down, close your eyes, don't move

objective: stay completely still and silent
















kiddies: erin! please can we play graveyard!?! please please please!?!?!!

erin: okay, maybe if everyone is REALLY good for the WHOLE class,
. . . . . i'll "let" you play for the last 10 minutes . . .

it's okay to have favorites, right?