Concerning pumpkins, film, and fish

"Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate...the first one said, 'Oh my, it's getting late!'" Halloween has exploded throughout the school in all of its orange and black splendor. Though Koreans don't really celebrate it that much, work is making a big deal of it to culture the students on American traditions...one sugar induced coma or jack-o-lantern at a time, it would seem. And just in case you are curious, the ever so clever and witty opener is from my favorite Halloween chant (to be faithfully reproduced below) taught to me by my mother and dutifully repeated lots and lots and LOTS of times come every October. I plan to ruthlessly drill it into the heads of my little 5 and 6 year olds until they know it better than I do, with hand motions of course. As it is, I had a fun week of making various odds and ends to put up in my two kindie classes. I made: a very well crafted "Happy Halloween" sign out of black letters to hang from the ceiling in Columbia, two spiders to hang from a web in the hall, colored trick or treating and witch pictures with both NYU and Columbia, and made construction paper jack-o-lanterns with NYU. If that wasn't enough, I also had my 11 year old students write me a Halloween story in their journal. Can anyone tell that I like the holidays or is it too subtle? The receptionists also put up balloons on all available ceiling real estate and covered the walls with more decals and added a dancing skeleton on the 3rd floor desk that is the constant delight of the kindies. My work is like walking into a Halloween supply store and we still have three weeks to go until the actual holiday. Anyone who so much as dares to be unfestive should gird their loins before coming within a mile.

So, not a bad week. We also got our first month's paycheck so I'm a millionaire! OK fine, in won. Saturday, Asteria, Laura and I headed south for the Busan International Film Festival. It sounds very promising and professional, doesn't it bring to mind red carpets and enlightening perspectives on post-modern cinematography? Mmmm, well. We hopped the KTX bullet train and was there in time, unfortunately, to catch our 11:00 AM movie, "The Dust of Time." Yes, it was as bad as the title. After two hours of incoherent statements on historic memory and angles, we made a grateful escape to some much needed Mexican Restaurant (one of about three in the whole of Korea). I had a decent burrito and some yummy drinks before heading back to the film festival area just in time to miss our second movie. This may have been for the best, as it was a very light and heartening chronicle of how African countries find safety and comfort in the tradition of killing Albinos. Your average breezy movie, clearly. Instead, we went to a noribong for some karaoke. I figured this was inevitable given where I am, so I gave in and we rented a room (here, noribongs rent individual rooms so you only sing with your party) for an hour and poured out our hearts with some Kelly Clarkson, some Beyonce, some Jason Mraz, some Backstreet Boys and yes Caitlin, some Bonnie Wright (and Celine but not Sam's song...). Interesting hour, I had a little too much fun with the strobe light and echo features that came with the room. Then, we got home and crashed.

This morning, I talked to my family for a while on skype and all of my old neighbors who happened to be visiting (yay Beards and Highlands), it was very comforting to hear lots of familiar voices and everyone's well wishes. It makes this immeasurably easier to feel my support system. Anyway, I watched some more bad TV in my PJs (this morning was Vampire Diaries and So You Think You Can Dance) before heading out with some of the girls at work to a coffee place. I had wild rose tea which was pretty good before taking advantage of a little special feature that came with this particular cafe...after having a drink, you can soak your feet in a tub and have little minnows eat all of the dead skin off. It was actually very relaxing and after I got over being ticklish, it felt sort of good, like a stream of gentle bubbles or when your foot falls asleep and it tingles as it begins to regain sensation. I still twinged every time they nibbled a really tickly area, like between my toes, but it was a very weird and unexpectedly fun thing to do. So here I am, another week gone! I still miss everyone though and I am putting out another plea for comments and emails! It's always important to me to stay in touch. Anyways, love to all!

Me.

Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate...
The first one said, "Oh my, it's getting late!"
The second one said, "There are witches in the air..."
The third one said, "Oh, we don't care!"
The fourth one said, "Let's run and run and run!"
The fifth one said, "It's just Halloween fun!"
And oooooooo went the wind, and OUT went the light...
And the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.