email

Subject: Box Mailed
Sha, Today I mailed you a box with a pedi-egg, 4 magazines, 6 news papers, 3 letters, 1 bottle of body wash, and 1 bottle of hand soap, please let me know when and or if you get it, we have not gotten a message from you since 04/02/2008, I trust that you are still alive and well. A short note once a week would be enough to keep your mother off my back OK. In the mean time take care of your self and write soon, if not I swear that I will buy your mother a ticket to KOREA and send her on over, it’s your call. Love Ya. Dad

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Subject: cherry blossom, 63
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2008 05:49:06 +0000
dear mom and dad,

i got a box last week, THANK YOU SO MUCH! tho my friends delighted in telling me that i must have ugly crusty feet for my own parents to send me a pediegg unsolicited. i have tons of spelnda left, so i gave the ziplock bag you sent me to a coworker, who went NUTS over it, so thank you for helping me spread some splenda joy!

the weather has been mostly nice. the scarf and hat and gloves are officially put away for the winter.

the cherry blossom festival just ended here last week. i tried to go w/some of the homegirls, but 5 different people told us to not bother b/c all the trees were dead and that it would be ridiculously crowded, especially since there would be only two trees. so we said forget it and went to the 63 building. for the better, i guess, b/c it seems that the cherry blossom festival isnt really a "festival."

i thought there'd be activities and such, but i think it's just people walking around and looking at the trees. they are very very pretty in bloom, but you can see them just having a walk around your neighborhood. i dont know, maybe my timing was off and i missed all the good stuff. meh, i'll try again next year.

the 63 building didnt turn out to be as impressive as i thought it would be. when going, i was under the impression that it was the tallest building in seoul, but we were told it's not anymore. but man, talk about small!

just like when i went to see the eiffel tower all those years ago, it was really not all i thought it would be. still, it was nice to say that i was there. The view from the top was aiight, but it was very cloudy the day we went, so like the cherry blossom, we just had bad timing.

as we started to leave, we saw this guy start to set up a table and some instruments, and we got excited thinking we were going to see some traditional korean music, or some sort of show! chairs were set up we got our spots, the guy started playing some sort of pipe. it looked like a panflute. he talked and sang, and we decided to leave b/c although the music was nice, it was nothing spectacular. as we were leaving, he began his rendition of playing and singing La Bamba. mom, you would've loved it.:)

AND I FINALLY HAVE INTERNET AT HOME NOW!!! so dad, please dont put mom on a plane to korea, i promise i'll write home more often.

~daughter

update: there's totally stuff to do and see and the cherry blossom festival, my homegirl neesa went. i just missed out like a lame-o. meh. maybe next year.

email

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.

email

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

email

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!

email

Subject: ben
Date: Mon 25 Feb 2008 22:03:52 +000
dear mom and dad,

my hair is growing. please send me an afropick. i'd like the kind w/a fist at the end, Dave knows which store i like (a black owned business by fammart, right across from wrigley's).

the weather has been warming up and im so friggin happy!

i went to a concert w/some of the sistas last week. slum village (american rap group) came to seoul and it was such a great show. i think me and the sistas were the only black people there, a few other foreigners sprinkled here and there, but mostly korean; none of them speak any english and yet doing their best to yell out the lyrics to the songs, it was nice.

it's a new term at school now. had my last day w/Ben this week. Ben is by far one of the brightest students in that class, sometimes i feel like he's the ONLY one who listens, so i will miss him very much! he's very quiet and soft spoken tho, but incredibly respectful of me. he doesnt make jokes or get casual like the other students. although he's quick to answer class related questions, when i ask him something casual like if he had fun over the weekend, he always smiles and looks down and says, "i dont know."
i tease and ask "Ben, you dont know if you had fun?
still looking down and smiling, he answers, "yes."

during the last 3 minutes of my class, i always announce to the kids to pack up their bags, straighten the desks, be sure to do your homework and goodbye. Ben, always going above and beyond, stays an extra minute after class to walk about the room to ensure the desks are perfectly straight, pushes in each chair so that it's flush against the desktop, and picks up every single sliver of trash he sees. the first time he did it, i thought it was so awesome and told him his parents must be so proud of how well mannered he is. after a while, i just figured he's got ocd or something. i asked him if he keeps him room at home as immaculate as me makes the classroom.

"Ben, do you organize your sock drawers? So that there are the same number of socks in each row? group colors together?"
Ben smiles, looks down, and says, "i dont know."

email

<--Namdaemun gate

Subject: RE: Cold In Korea

Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 01:39:08

dear mom and dad,

so i finally had my meeting and signed on with my job for another year. hooray! it's still very cold here. boo. i'll be in the same office, keeping the same apt, so im pretty content overall.

it looks like i wont be home for a while. there've been a lot of changes at work and im not too comfortable about asking for time off now, especially since i just resigned. ideally i'd like to be home for all of february for black history month (you know!) but we'll see what happens. i'll of course keep emailing in the meanwhile.

i still dont have internet! but one of my coworkers is leaving to go back home to canada and he has graciously offered to sell me his computer. i know for sure it will work in my place, since he's using it for internet at his place right now. so we'll see that that goes as well.

what goes on under namdaemun

did you hear that Namdaemun here in seoul burned down? Namdaemun is a historic gate that was designated the number one national treasure of South Korea, it was over 600 years old, i saw it on airang news. turns out the guy who did it was a 67 korean man, he'd been convicted of arson before. he said he hated society, or something, and that's why he did it. unfortunately i didnt get to visit before the fire, but i heard plans to rebuild are in the works. hey, i read that the canal market in camdon suffered a fire recently as well! is it shitty of me to say that im glad i got to go there before it burned? *blush* i heard no one was hurt, so, ya know...

we're in the last week of this term now and the kids are begging for candy and pizza and parties, all of which i decline. i'd love to reward them, but it's against the rules and for the better b/c im sure they'd go crazy with "last day" excitement. my class yesterday that usually gets all A's on the test got B's and C's yesterday b/c they didnt study. i told them all that i had planned pizza and movies for class that day, but would cancel since their grades were so poor. they were really sad and whined a lot. now that was shitty of me... funny to me, too, but pretty shitty... ha!!!!!

im finishing up teaching an abridged version of "call of the wild" by jack london. it's really interesting teaching it w/curtis in the class b/c he is a fan of dog meat. i'll be at the board breaking down sentences:

me: what does the book say about Buck the dog? What kind of dog is he? which of our vocabulary words are they using?
kids reading from the text: Aggressive!
me: yes, that's right. what does that mean? How else can we describe Buck? what are some other words for "aggressive?"
kids: Mean! Like to fight! Strong!
curtis: Delicious!
entire class laughs.
students beg to know if i've eaten dog meat.

email

picture from google image search, of course.

Subject: RE: KINKY CURLY
Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 05:02:47 +0000
dear mom and dad,

hello from "cold as i dont know what" korea. aside from the weather, things are great. im still waiting to resign a new contract at work, but these sort of things tend to drag, not just at my job, but all of korea, so i'm told. one friend told me she wasnt resigned until 3 days before her contract was up. another homegirl of mine went all they way to the main office, and they forgot she was coming and wasnt ready for her, and consequently had to postpone. ive heard the same sort of thing, from different english teachers, from different schools, so, im one of many. i have no idea when i'll be home for a visit. the kinky kurly products were for me to pick up when i came home for a visit... so... nevermind that for now. mail them if you can, but if not, s'cool, it's nothing urgent at all. maybe i'll come home in april, or may. i dont know.

i never got the internet hooked up. it's a long story w/ the computer being old and my not being able to communicate w/the internet person. maybe next week after the holiday, i'll try again. Korea has two different New Year's days and Feb. 7 is celebrated as Lunar New Year, the first day of the lunar calendar, called "Sul Nal."

i got the blue bed sheets this week, thank you soooo much! i got the orange ones a while back too, i swore it felt like i emailed you a thank you for it... maybe i just dreamed it. but again, thank you, they're much appreciated. a girlfriend of mine was admiring them, begging to know where on earth i found western style sheets here. told her it was all Love from home!

this term at school is over in two weeks. i'll miss these kids. i got this one little girl Cathy, she's so cute. she really makes me feel like a successful teacher, b/c she said she'd never gotten an A on the tests before she came to my class, and now she gets A's almost every week. well... i do give lots of test hints... maybe im doing too many... *panic!*

during class break last week, cathy got a hold of my cell phone number in class, and wrote it on the board smiling wide and asking, "Teacher,is this your number?" it's written on the back of my phone (as is for most of us, the cell phone people put it on a sticker when you get your phone). i told her yes, to erase the number, and never to call me.

cathy "But why, teacher?"
me "what are you going to call me for? to say hi? 'hi teacher, i love you!' "
the class laughs.

the next day i get a text msg:
hey sistersha!! sup??
are you teaching?
Cathy <3

i write back:
stop texting me
and study your vocabulary
for your test on monday.
~sister sha.

reply from cathy:
well, i texted u only once!!
happy sol na new year! :)