Charpie's Travels

I walked out of work tonight with my bundle of gifts accumulated over the last two days. Today is Teachers' Day in Korea. A few presents trickled in during the week, but the bulk of them came in Friday. My first Teachers' Day gift was Chanel lip gloss from Henry. If you know me, I hope you see the irony in that. A couple classes later, Jason presented me with a tin of cookies. Other gifts included flowers made of soap, a Hilfiger shirt, lotions, more Chanel and Mary Kay, spiffy pens, Tazo tea, more cookies, and a $100 gift certificate. Some parents, instead of buying for one or two teachers, get something for everyone. One mother went to the coffee shop in our building and ordered iced coffees for all the Korean and foreign staff. That's a LOT of iced coffee. More bottled beverages, donuts, and rice cakes appeared on our desks, and our boss brought in pizza. I only recently learned that the US has a Teachers' Day. I do believe those teachers get the short en

Tattling is increasingly annoying to me. In some of my classes, there are punishments for tattling. For most, I have to repeatedly define the word. The conversation goes something like this... Student: Teacher! Jason say my name! Me:  Amy, did someone get hurt? Student:  Teacher but-  Me: Is someone going  to get hurt? Student:  No... Me:  Is anything broken? Student: *sigh*  Me:  Then I don't want to hear about it. I don't remember which girl tried to tattle this morning. I don't even remember why she was annoyed. What I remember is the boy in the front row. Before I could respond, he whipped his head around and let her have it. "Is it broken?" he demanded. "Are you hurt??" And then he turned back to his work without even waiting for her reply.

When I look out my apartment window, I see two taller buildings and a traffic light. I'm not entirely sure why the light is there. There's no intersection. There is a hill.... No one seems to heed the light anyway. I don't blame them. It used to flash, and it always flashed the same color. The last few days have been different and far cooler. The green, yellow, and red are all lit. All the time. 

We rented bikes today and rode along the river. I am a big fan of the Han River. And rent-a-bikes.  When we stopped for coffee, I set my bag on the table. Well, apparently I only set part of the bag on the table. As I began to walk away, I heard it fall and turned back just in time to see my camera roll out and land by the window.  I do believe Hillary and Susan were felt worse about it than I did. With the freshly busted lens, I get some sweet shots like this (after a little tweaking). As much as I love this one, I do believe a repair shop is in my near future. Regardless, it was a pretty fabulous day! Seoul gets even better as the weather warms up.