ROST IN TRANSRATION: January 2006

PDA! PDA! turn your head the other way . . .

that's PDA as in "public display of affection,"
not "personal data assistant."
(or whatever it is that other PDA stands for)

so i kissed two different boys today.
well, i should say i was kissed by two boys.
but it wasn't my fault.

the first kiss was from aaron. age 5. pictured here, standing to my left. you would think he would be standing a bit closer, since he was about to kiss me and all.

(today was the lunar new year celebration and birthday party at my school, so it was playtime all day and the kids wore the traditional korean dress again, the hanbok.)

i was puffing out my cheeks, like i do all the time, expecting to get two little fists to the face at which point i would produce a raspberry *pthbbb* sound, earning myself some giggles, and perhaps a face full of kid spit in return.

instead i got a big, fat smooch right in the kisser. whoa. did anyone else see that? no one? okay good . . . tra la la, i'm going to go stand over here now.

aaron is new to this whole, school/teacher/student thing.

i was more guarded for the rest of the day, lest another child be overcome with the holiday spirit and lay another one on me. it seems i was not guarded enough. after stuffing my face with lots of birthday cake, i spent the last half of the afternoon watching "a bug's life" in a dark room (there's my mistake right there) with a bunch of kids, half asleep.

jason, age 6, pictured below:

was asleep in my lap. or so i thought . . . as soon as the movie ended, he turned around, looked me right in the eyes, blinked a big blink, grabbed my cheeks, said "Erin! I love you!" and kissed me before i even knew what was happening.

once again i feel that i would never survive an american kindergarten.
i would be fired and then tell my story on oprah.
but it wasn't my fault!

the best of both worlds

a new student in my school who spent the past two years in canada, when asked what she liked best about canada and korea respectively, said:

canada has horses, but korea has really cool pencil cases.

yup, i'd have to agree.

this one's a doozie!

hey kids! i'm still alive and kicking and having a golden time in korea. sorry i've been so absent. i had so much fun with my company, i wasn't sure how to pick the best pictures to post. so here goes:

yay! ryan and christie and i had sooooo much fun in seoul.
we went to the dmz one day.

here's a picture of the dmz theme park . . . yeah . . .

and a fence between south korea and the dmz. that's me there. as we stood there, they started playing patsy cline on loud speakers. then when we turned to walk away from the walls a flock of doves flew out from under some bushes into the sky. very, very dramatic.

and the train tracks that will "one day" run from seoul to north korea. some day. maybe. it's really cold in this train station and these military police guys have to stand there all day and not talk and take pictures with stupid tourists like us.

from the korean war memorial museum, a bit of korean war propaganda . . .

ryan, accosted by jehovah's witnesses at the train station.

and the king of pirates bar in seoul! it's there where you can drink beer from an ice mug, then chuck the mug at a target when you are done. if you hit the target, you get a prize! yay! possibly the best bar on earth. except it looks like an olive garden on the inside. not a seedy pirate bar.