oh the difference one little phoneme makes

there is a sound that makes my skin crawl and sends shivers down my spine. it's the sound of little korean 6 year olds screaming "i'm done" 5 minutes into what should have been a 20 minute activity. and they say it over, and over, and over again. it's one of their favorite things to say, and in some cases, one of the only things they can/do say. and when one starts it, they slowly all start in.



I'M DONE!!




I'M DONE!!




ERIN! I'M DONE!! I'M DONE!!




I'M DONE!!



however, there is a golden light amidst the droning horror of the "i'm done"s.
i give you andrea, with a demonstration.

andrea is done

madama butterfry

last night i got my first taste of opera at the daegu opera house. my coworkers told me that the opera here is really casual and i didn't need to dress up at all. um, that wasn't quite true. but underdressed or not, it was a good time.


this is the opera house, all lit up at night. the inside reminds me a lot of the hancher auditorium in iowa city and place des arts in montreal. maybe it's all standard.

(three little geishas standing in a row)

i don't know if you all know the story of madame butterfly, but the basic story line is:

sleazy white american soldier (pinkerton) goes to japan, marries a geisha (madame butterfly), leaves her alone for three years, she waits by the window for him to come back, he returns and denies her and her kid, she commits hara kiri.

so last night i watched koreans singing in italian pretending to be american. it was trippy. and to be "american" the koreans sort of died their hair (or wore wigs) a burnt sienna color and kind of curled it a bit. it didn't work for me. i kept having to remind myself, oh yeah, that guy's american. but then when madame butterfly brings out her kid, all the illusion i could muster fell apart. the kid, from the nosebleed seats, didn't have striking korean features, like the large headed lead male character, and he had on an oversized ken-doll floppy blonde wig. pinkerton could have easily denied that the kid was his at all in this case. :)
it was pretty cool overall. the singing was amazing! i wish i could do that! although i didn't have the same reaction as julia roberts in pretty woman. then again, i wasn't wearing that huge diamond necklace. maybe that had something to do with it. and i had forgotten my opera goggles.

happy thanksgiving! (the third and final)

i had the pleasure of celebrating three thanksgivings this year! first korean, then canadian, and now american. i'm really feeling the love. so i realized that i never posted anything about korean thanksgiving. i'll get to that, but first, i offer a visual treat. a korean kindergarten's take on hand-tracing turkeys. does this remind anyone else of helen keller the musical?






after we were done making the turkeys, the kids asked me why we were even making turkeys at all. i forgot that that was something that i might have to explain to them! and my boss says she's not all that interested in eating turkey ever, to which peter guffawed something about the nasty things with eyeballs and bugs that they eat here. seriously rosie. it's just turkey! :)


then, last night, i had a real thanksgiving feast! there is one american kid at our school. anaka, the rock star in front of the christmas tree. a few of us gathered at her family's house to eat. and eat. and eat. it was fantastic. i even had biscuits and gravy! but not like grammy makes. and there was no broccoli-rice-cheese casserole, mom. (sigh)


so, chusok. the korean thanksgiving. our korean friend sunny invited us all over to eat good korean food and play korean cards. that was waaaay back in september or something. feels like forever. so this is a korean thanksgiving table set for four. and this was only the first round.



korean cards. very tiny, hard plastic things. i still couldn't tell you how to play. we also played gin rummy, which they call hula. but we played that game with "western" cards, of course.

and finally, the korean traditional dress: hanbok. the kids all dressed up and had a fun day playing games and eating good food stuffs.


of course, peter, niki, and i had no hanbok to speak of. so we made our own.



so here's wishing a lovely holiday weekend to all of you south of the canadian border. i hope it's tasty and fun and that you get lots and lots of sleep (megs).

no way

i just found out that my spectacular advisor got my masters paper into quite a nice linguistic conference in banff for april. wow. this is of course good for my academic resume and a great scholarly experience . . . blah, blah, blah. but the TRULY fantastic part is that this means . . .


banff banff banff banff banff!! yippie!


and i may just have to swing by calgary . . .


where i'll most definitely see these folks!


and probably this guy here.


and this fisherwoman . . .



and maybe even this shifty character.

i am so excited and so happy! i get to paint one more canadian province red!
however, i can't help but feel that this would be just that much more fun for me if i cared at all about skiing.
hooray for everything! :)

antidisestablishmentarianism

julie

good job kevin

peter refuses, marie accepts

go kayla go!

caught matt by surprise . . .

yay billy!

tori does the best job of the day!

korean pears taste like nyquil

and i don't know which is more odd:

the fact that korean pears taste like nyquil

or

the fact that when it dawned on me that it was in fact nyquil
that korean pears taste like, i realized that i really enjoy nyquil

pardon the profanity

but this shirt is pretty funny

guess who's coming to dinner (with absolutely no class)

Katharine Hepburn

You scored 21% grit, 28% wit, 57% flair, and 4% class!

You are the fabulously quirky and independent woman of character. You
go your own way, follow your own drummer, take your own lead. You stand
head and shoulders next to your partner, but you are perfectly willing
and able to stand alone. Others might be more classically beautiful or
conventionally woman-like, but you possess a more fundamental common
sense and off-kilter charm, making interesting men fall at your feet.
You can pick them up or leave them there as you see fit. You share the
screen with the likes of Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant, thinking men who
like strong women.






My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

	You scored higher than 45% on grit
	You scored higher than 50% on wit
	You scored higher than 90% on flair
	You scored higher than 0% on class

Link: The Classic Dames Test