Charpie's Travels

We ate lunch outside in front of the coffee shop that gets a decent chunk of my income. I had tuna bibimbap . Like most rice dishes, this one is supposed to be eaten with a spoon. I was too lazy, however, to pull out chopsticks AND a spoon. A few minutes into my lunch, one of the baristas came outside, stuck a small plastic spoon in my bowl, and returned to her work.  When I arrived in my first grade class, quiet Shiyoo proudly held out her shiny, gray fingertips for me to see. She used her break wisely to color them with her pencil. Jason did the same but clearly forgot about it. He didn't make it ten minutes before his cheeks and nose were varying shades of pencil gray. 

I never imagined I'd have a favorite subway station, but I do. I'm certainly not the only one who likes it. People even get married in there. Noksapyeong

Because of the no-food-in-class rule, I made Henry put away the remainder of his kimbap. In turn, he walked to the open window, pushed his face as close to the outside as possible, and yelled "My teacher is a green-eyed monster!" We encountered the word "myriad" during vocab class, so I asked if anyone knew what the word meant. One student confidently replied, "it's punctuation." Harry got distracted while taking out a pencil. While everyone else started on the worksheet, Harry held his pencils like chopsticks and used them to rearrange the contents of his pencil case.

We were cutting out and gluing some labels in Science. Instead of throwing away his leftover paper, one of my boys cut it into tiny pieces which he dumped in my pocket.  "Here's dynamite, Teacher!" he proudly announced before scurrying to the other end of the room.

Thanks to Buddha, we had a long weekend. A couple coworkers and I took a 3 1/2 hour bus trip to the East Sea. Should you ever decide to do the same thing, take note that the travel time can double on holidays. We spent nearly 7 hours on the bus. Sokcho Beach

The Han River runs through Seoul and is one of the greatest things about this city. Han River

Each morning, I write all my kids' names on the board. This is where we keep track of happy faces and other little things. On this particular day, writing 12 names took nearly 20 minutes. Before I reached her row, Ann informed me that she was no longer Ann. "My name is Annie." So I added 'Annie' to the list. Not surprisingly, more kids suddenly needed different names. "Teachaaar!" Henry shouted. "I'm Hengry!!" He couldn't decide whether it meant he was hungry or angry, but he cracked himself up either way. Andy (the original name-shifter) chose to be Candy. Most recently, he'd been Qandy. Annabelle became Anne, and Ellizabeth decided to be Annabelle. Jini turned into Aini, and Justin became Iron Man.   Peter insisted on being Hakinman. Either it's something Korean or he didn't know how to spell Heineken Man. Maro decided on Karo, and Kelly chose Jelly. JunSeo and Jaden kept their real names and just enjoyed t...