So Halloween is over, which is very depressing because "teaching" is no longer allowed to consist of listening to the Monster Mash (it was a graveyard smash!) and carving pumpkins. I love the cultural lessons, because even if the kids are speaking no English, at least I can comfort myself that they're learning about American customs. When can I start on Christmas? Is November 2 too early?

Here is a list of things that Korean people eat with chopsticks:
all Korean food (obviously), except for soup and fruit (fruit gets cocktail forks, always)
spaghetti
pork chops
crab (talk about impossible)
fish, including seemingly hundreds of tiny bones, which must be carefully removed, one by one
salad
pancakes
tangerines

Chopsticks are also used in place of a spatula when flipping things, a fact that I find VERY STRESSFUL when Fresa asks me to flip over the sweet potato medallions sizzling in the pan, because even a 10 second delay means they could be a little too browned and then I'd be in trouble. Sometimes I do okay with the chopsticks. Sometimes I end up flinging anchovies across the table into Yong Ju's face. You never know.

Here is a horrifying story (so horrifying that I'm about tell it to EVERYONE I KNOW): So from October 25-31st I taught my Halloween lesson which involved, as I have mentioned, carving a jack-o-lantern. Since I have twelve first grade classes, I was accumulating jack--lanterns pretty steadily throughout the week. At Mr. Kim's suggestion, I kept all of them on top of one of the filing cabinets in the teachers lounge, leering down at everyone and generally providing some holiday spirit. By Tuesday, though, a lot of them had started to get a little soft and moldy, so we decided to take them down....oh god....when Mr. Kim reached up and grabbed the first (and oldest) pumpkin, a wave of rancid, rotten pumpkin juice came gushing out of the pumpkins, mouth, totally drenching my poor co-teacher. OH. MY. GOD. This is a man who I worry I've offended if I BOW at the wrong time. And I've just caused him to be covered in foul pumpkin rot. This was much, much worse than that one time I was a piddling 15 minutes late to class (also not totally, technically my fault but majorly guilt-inducing nonetheless).

We're dong MadLibs in class for the rest of the week: "You're body is so sexy like an octopus." "You're eyes are like two red devils and your hair is confusing like garbage." From one of my favorite students, a little bit of poetry: "You're eyes are like violet oceans...the sound of your voice is reminds me of the gently flying bird outside my window...your lips are two sacred bumblebees."