"TEACHERS, BECAUSE OF FLU WE WILL NOW HAVE HALLOWEEN PARTY IN DECEMBER"

As I was falling asleep last night I was thinking about all these things I wanted to write on my blog.  I have since forgotten I think about all of them.  I think some of them might have been pretty insightful too.  Well maybe I will remember as I'm falling asleep tonight.  But then again I guess that won't help because I will just forget them all again tomorrow.  O'well.  Such is life.

• Our kinde classes were cancelled for the better part of last week because one of the kids got what they are calling the "new flu".  Still haven't quite figured out if this "new flu" is swine flu, or some other strain.  We now have to wear masks while we teach.  Yesturday our cute little supervisor JJ Teacher said, "Teachers, maybe you shouldn't plan Christmas vacation because we might not have it if the government decides to close schools."  Right...we only have two weeks of vacation a year and most of the people have already booked their flights.  I don't know how serious the government is about shutting schools down.  Koreans really freak out about this kind of stuff.  Parents are keeping their kids home.  The attendance in most of my classes is almost cut in half.  It's pretty nice.  Now instead of 8 screaming 9 years olds I only have 4 to deal with.

• One of the kids in my kinde class quit, and no one told me.  I had to find out by piecing together different conversations and making assumptions.  All I know is that it wasn't a bad breakup.  I think the kid just moved or something.  We had a pizza party in our class and then his dad bought pizza's for all the teachers a couple fridays ago so this is why I'm assuming he didn't quit because he didn't like the school so I guess that is good.  But now I only have 2 little kinde nuggets.  I'm going to miss Elvin and his beautiful perm.

• The other day I told one of the kids in a class of mine that I was going to punch him in the face if he didn't shut his mouth.  He deserved it trust me.  This is one of things I love about teaching in Korea.  You can say things like that, and not get fired.  You can give your kids hugs, and not get fired.  You can make a kid hold a chair above his head for ten minutes for misbehaving, and not get fired.  It's awesome.

• Sometimes my bathroom smells like some animal died, and is now decaying in the corner.  I don't know why.  This smell gets emitted from the bathroom area probably a few times a day.  Let me see if I can give you a mental picture of my bathroom...I have lived in some sort of gross places in my life.  Don't worry Mom, I'm not talking about our house.  I thought the place I lived in in Prague was pushing it, then I moved into employee housing for the Steamboat Springs Ski Resort.  I didn't think it would get worse than that.  Then I came here and took a look inside my bathroom.  Don't get me wrong.  I am pretty much perfectly happy in my apartment/room.  I have kind of become immune to living in not so clean of places.  The bathroom doesn't bother me that much...that is until that smell suddenly come creeping out, or I go to someone else's room and see how nice their bathroom is.  The foundation around my toilet is coming off so the toilet wobbles a little.  There are literally chunks of cement breaking off, and then like the remnants of glue and pieces of cement stuck to the floor around the toilet.  Also my knee touches the wall when I sit on the toilet, and I'm not tall by any means.  Just one knee touches though because the wall sorta juts in to go around a pipe or something.  Then when I was cleaning a couple weeks ago the seat part broke.  So now it is imperative to make sure the seat is straight on before you sit down.  There is no adjusting your sitting posture once you sit or else the seat will slide right off.  I tried to explain that to Emily before she used the toilet the other day.  Either she didn't understand, or she didn't pay attention.  She fell in.

• Celebrated Halloween on Saturday.  I went as grapes, so I pinned a bunch of purple balloons on myself.  We took the bus, and then subway into Seoul.  The Koreans got a pretty good kick out of us.  I think they knew what Halloween was, but they don't really celebrate it.  Some lady with no teeth started talking to Emily and I while we were on the subway.  I have no idea what she was saying.  I think she was probably making fun of us.

• Going hiking again this weekend!  I'm very excited.  Going to Seoraksan National Park.  It is supposed to be a pretty cool place.  We are going with a group called Adventure Korea.  They organize trips for foreigners.  I had to wire money from my bank account to theirs in order to pay for the trip.   You can just do this at ATM's.  So I thought I could maybe figure out how to do it myself.  Mind you it was all in Korean.  I thought I did pretty good until I got my receipt and realized I had transfered 990,000 won, roughly equal to $990, instead of 99,000 won.   It's ok though.  Crisis averted.  They are in the process of wiring the money back.

That's about all I have for now folks.  I hope you all are doing well.  Talk to ya later...

P.S. GO HAWKS!!!!!!!!!!!!