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Subject: RE: Package Mailed
Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2008 05:51
dear mom and dad,

hi! we're in week 4 in the term, school is flying by. things are great at work still. the weather is nice. i dont really have anything exciting to tell you, i havent done much lately other than work and hang out locally w/friends. still working on getting internet. mom, chill out, i just dont make it to the internet cafe to do email everyday. i promise, everything is fine, stop worrying.

i got the kinky curly hair products, thanks so much! it made my hair sooo curly! all the kids kept asking, "teacher, perma? perma??" 'perma' is "perm" as in like the women here get to make their hair curly. we had a small cultural lesson that day and i explained to the kids that black people most often have naturally curly hair. little 8 yr old james claps his hands and smiles and says, "i love black people. i think they are so amazing!" i told him 'thank you.' :)

i DID get a package from you all at the beginning of the week, it had the hair picks, the t shirt, magazines, comics, and splenda, thanks so much. i picked out my hair and went to work on friday and the children all asked again, "Teacher, you get perma?" i guess for them, anything other than korean bone straight black hair must be a perm.

thanks a lot too for those flower/insect shiny stickers! i put stickers on the kids tests when they get A's, i'll hold these you've sent me for the A+'s, im sure it'll be a big hit in the classroom. this term, my classroom is right above a fast food place called kyochon chicken, and ive got one class that begs every week for me to buy them chicken as a reward for their good grades. i use the good old *** response of, "Ok, wait right there..." two weeks later, they started to understand, and now when i say 'wait right there,' they whine sooo badly, "Oooh Teacher, you fishing!" (fishing=joking, tricking) is it mean that it makes me laugh?



my two biggest additictions in this life are sex and food. seriously, kyochon chicken is so good, i think given a choice between really great sex and fresh chicken, i would rather eat this chicken. if/when you come to korea, find a kyochon, eat some chicken, then send me a thank you card.

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Subject: amah
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 06:32:43 +0000
dear mom and dad,

things are going so great this term. we're about a month in and i really love my classes. i got exactly the schedule i wanted, exactly the classes i wanted to teach, and i have a lot of fun w/the kids. im feeling really lucky/happy these days.

i think i told you w/the warming weather, i've been trying to explore more. i went to insadong recently. this is an area of seoul that's big w/tourists. lots of art galleries, and antique stores, stores that sell old books, pictures and calligraphy, and a lot store that sell traditional Korean ceramics pots and such. was nice. lots of people. meh. by the way, a week or so ago, i got the package with the magazines and newspaper comics in them. Thanks so much, getting the mail means a lot to me.

oh, i finally went to korean class for the first time on saturday! it was so wonderful! the classes are broken down by level, so i was in beginner. there were maybe a dozen people total. i learned a couple simple phrases which i of course forget now, i learned how to count, and was able to say my cell phone number in korean! it was so exciting! i look forward to next week, and every week after. even after this one lesson, i felt so good leaving class realizing what "o-bec-won" meant. it's a 500 won coin. it's all so clear now! :)

speaking of words and meanings, i think i told you about the kids using "konglish?" Like instead of saying A+ for the grade, they say "A-pull," as their abbreviation. For A-, they say "A-mah" or "A-minor." i pointed out to them that A minor is a musical note, and that they should make efforts to use proper pronunciations. but loving their abbreviations so much, they instead try to think of a replacement...

kids conversing:
"Teacher say no A-minor."
"oh, ok."
"A-mah? Teacher, can we say A-mah?"
"oh, A-mus? Teacher?"
"Oh, oh! Teacher! Teacher, Anus? Anus? Teacher? Anus?"

true story.

~Daughter

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Subject: bball/squid
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 03:23:09 +0000
dear mom and dad,

sorry ive not written in a while. the weather is warming, so its not cold keeping me from the internet cafe, it's just plain ol' laziness. when i do make it to the cafe, i pretty much play dominoes for an hour and then go home. sorry for not writing for so long. a home computer is still on the horizon for me, i promise.

weeks ago, i was feeling annoyed at the slow slow progression of my weight loss and looked online for lapband procedures in asia. i was just wanting some information. one of the websites i looked at wouldn't let me input my overseas adrs & phone number, so i used yours so that i could send an email inquiry. so, sorry about the call. i did come to find it is available here, but i chickened out.

so dad, youre really and truly going to retire?! i dont believe it. i love and adore Mom, but i bet you'll be soon be driven to sitting at the donut shop on Euclid and Division w/all them other elders, playing chess/dominoes and talking about nothing! whatever happens, dont work at burger king, it's too much standing and moving on your feet and that's bad for your back, Poppa. maybe a volunteer gig where you'll be at a desk or something. the Black Infant Health Center still in that same shopping center? you can volunteer there. I went in once years ago whilst in college, to ask about helping, there was one woman inside at the desk and after ignoring me for 3 min, she told me they had no need for volunteers. HATER.

w/the warming weather, i try to venture out more, and i went to a basketball game here with some of the sistas a couple of weeks ago. i had no idea who was playing. one team was wearing red, the other wore white. i think one team was called the SK Knights. there were maybe 3 brothas on each team, me and the sistas tried to meet them after the game to get autographs. didnt pull any phone number tho :( ah well! the game was fun, everybody was holding red balloons and eating squid. i dont know if hot dogs and such were even available, but i could smell the dried squid everywhere. ah, just like back home at seafood city in national city!