chal ga (so long), korea

What is that feeling
when you're driving away from people
and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing?

-- it's the too-huge world vaulting us,
and it's good-bye.
But we lean forward
to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.

--jack kerouac, on the road

assignment: write two paragraphs about the city you live in

Daegu, Korea: by Susie (in the pink)

I live in Daegu. People here are like rabbits. There are many peoples who live in Daegu. Peoples here have a body and face. They eat delicious food, not like snails or other bugs.
My house is in Daegu. My house is always hot and warm. Our family always wears short clothes in our house. I love my house and my country.

okay susie, correction: you peoples do eat bugs.




Daegu, Korea: by Nana (in the front left corner)

I live in Daegu. There are many stores and many people in Daegu. Erin loves to play a guitar and many people goes to mainstreet. I like Korea and I think Korean people are good and many other things. Daegu has lots of strong points and a weak point. We have many inventions of thoughts and ideas.
Daegu has many peoples in houses or many other places. I think Daegu is the bestest place in the world. And bestest idea is what? Our idea!

i couldn't bring myself to correct her on "bestest" there.
it was too cute. i just left it. does that make me a bad teacher?

the hits just keep coming

use the following vocabulary words in a sentence

1. steep

I steep in the mud.

2. trail

I trail doll in the toy box.
(this is one of the rare ones that i simply can't get meaning from)

3. shade

I scared of my own shade.

4. helmet

I helmet for a ride of bicycle.

i'd like to thank the academy

for NOT giving joaquin phoenix an oscar for best actor when that guy couldn't speak-with-an-arkansas-accent his way out of a paper bag. ptthbbbb.

practically ruined the movie for me is what he did. stupid.

another notably sucky southern accent performance was given by ewan mcgregor (oh ewan, you are so cute though) in the movie "big fish."

the most painful part of all is that in "big fish" ewan mcgregor couldn't make southern talk, yet his character's older counterpart, albert finney, could. talk about killing the illusion.
then, in "walk the line", the careless cinematic developmental accent shift (as i would like to dub it) occured in reversed chronological order as the young j.r. cash could do southern while mr. phoenix, well, you know, pttthhbbb.

talk about having a hitch in yer giddy-up. it's as if johnnie cash fell and bumped his head and woke up with foreign accent syndrome, one language aphasia i wouldn't mind acquiring by the way.

like a true nature's child

a pinch and a dash

megs directed me to the site myheritage.com where,
if you upload a photo of yourself, they will scan celebrity faces
to see who you most resemble.

you can check out megs's site to see
that she got some fantastic matches.
i on the other hand, am 71% meryl strep and 62% eddie murphy.

hmm . . .

i don't see it.
please say that you don't either.

the difference a hat can make

another scene from a korean kindergarten class

enter erin, with braided pigtails and stocking cap

student 1: wow erin! you look like anne of green gables today!

student 2: well, if you had red hair.

student 1: yeah, really really bright red hair.

student 2: and freckles.

student 1: and if you were 12 years old.

student 2: and had, you know, a sunlight hat, instead of your hat.

student 1: yeah, a hat with a big bow. or maybe no hat.

student 2: no, if you had no hat, you'd look like an indian.

overheard at the arcade

"i say we either find guns or we go back"

"hey look! you get a prize!"
"really!?"
"well, no. but you could"

"nobody gives a hoot about me and my stupid bat"

max beats on thomas: a four part photographic study of kindergarten in action; presented by a teacher who maybe should have been stopping the beating

little daniel joker

does anyone remember "little johnny jokes"? the ones where little johnny asks his mommy what all the naughty words mean and she tells him they mean really innocent things so he goes and tells the priest, innocently, that his mom is doing all these naughty word things?

well, i was late for my third class today because one of my 7-year-old wunderkinds, daniel, was telling me what i can only imagine is a korean-student-learning-english's version of a little johnny joke.

it took him about 7 minutes to tell the joke and i didn't understand he was telling a joke until about 5 minutes into it. once i realized he was telling a joke, it was the funniest thing i have ever heard in my life. i think he intended it to be kind of bad, slightly dirty even, but he messed up all the punch lines.

and when i was done, he stunned me with a "wingardium leviosa" harry potter spell so i could fly easily to my next class. sigh. sigh.

it reminded me of jokes my little brother used to make up, like, for example:

why did oprah eat soap?
because she wanted to be a soap oprah.

get it?