Concerning Ayche Aye Double-L Oh Double You Double Eeee En Halloween Night (clap clap)

Hokay. So. Last week was an interesting one. I survived the monthly transition in fine style due to some strategic pre-planning so most of the week I was smugly sitting pretty with plenty of time to do a few fun extra Halloween projects. In the spirit of the day, I loaded up on sugar to dispense amongst my little ravenous masses-- snickers, chewey pumpkin Korean candy (yummy, who knew?), and ghost lollipops. They went down like a charm, the kids loved them. I also procured a pumpkin- admittedly, a small, grey-orange, eating pumpkin, but a pumpkin nonetheless. I brought it in to work and carved it with my first kindie class which was fantastic. I have realized that after how many years of just giving up and taking over the carving festivities at my house, I've become pretty good. I handled all of the knife parts, obviously, but I let the kids scoop out the seeds (and cried a little bit inside that I couldn't let them smush their hands all around in it and get their uniforms dirty because this is, in my opinion, the best part hands down). But, we had that sucker gutted and glowing within 15 minutes. Not bad considering I was also managing 6 6 year olds at the time and that no one came out of it with bleeding appendages. We took some pictures in all of our costumes and had fun. Two girl friends and I were the power puff girls, so I had a black dress, a yellow belt, a yellow head band, and felt yellow wrist super hero things. I even put my hair into the ball pigtails and the kids thought it was hilarious. The kids upstaged me though, they were painfully adorable. Among the memorable ones: Snow White, Dracula, the Little Mermaid, a tiny knight, a tiny aristocrat complete with cravat, and my favorite 5 year old kindie was a jack-o-lantern topped off with a squishy orange hat.

After the pictures, my 6 year olds and I read a scary story that I wrote about all of them ("The Haunted Tree" about helping a sad ghost with a jack-o-lantern) and then we performed "5 Little Pumpkins" for the 5 year olds. They did my mother and me proud. After lunch, Asteria and I were in charge of a crunchy onion ring eating contest which was absolutely hilarious. It cracked me up to see the little dressed up 4 year olds revolving around to try and get the onion ring in their mouth and failing miserably. Too cute. Throughout the afternoon, I gave all my kids the candy (after making them say trick or treat of course) and toated my jack-o-lantern around with me. I thought it was really endearing that even my oldest kids were enthralled with it and shocked to find out that it was, in fact, a real pumpkin. I also read some funny Halloween poems and generally had a fun day of it.

Saturday morning, I went to see the opera Carmen in Daegu, which is a city about 1:45 hours away by train. It was a gorgeous ride there, the unrelenting green hills have finally sprouted color. My favorite were these violently yellow ones that sporatically popped up during the journey. The opera itself was nice, especially given that it cost me precisely $10 for the ticket. What it lacked in professionality and acting it made up for in cheerfulness. I didn't realize how many of the melodies I would be familiar with. My favorites were "Habanera" and "Toreador." Although, as with most operas, the language thing was interesting as Asteria and I swore we heard Italian, Spanish, and French jumbled together throughout the songs. I hadn't seen a real opera performance before (bar Whitman's production of Mozart's Cossi Van Tutte) and I enjoyed it but I remembered all of my first impressions when we briefly studied Don Giovanni in core freshman year. The timing in particular always cracks me up- they spent about 15 minutes establishing that a woman had a message from her lover's mother ("You have a message from my mother?" "Indeed, my darling, a message I do carry from your mother!" "Truly, from my mother?" "From your mother!" "From my mother, your hands do clasp a letter!" "All this I do declare, that I do possess a message written by the hand of your own dear mother!" ) but then the death of Carmen, the building point of the whole opera, takes five seconds and is this pathetic little stab. Oh well. I guess maybe George Bizet was adopting a more journey centered approach to his music instead of minding the destination.

After the opera, we tried to find a restaurant but completely failed so we settled for McDonalds and hopped a train home. I freshened up and then met some girlfriends at a bar downtown for some Halloween drinks before hitting up the only proper dance club in town, Cocoon. Even after being here for the chunk of time that I have, the whole foreigner thing still takes me by surprise sometimes. We had a bit of a red-sea effect again when we came on the dance floor and every time that I danced with a guy, it seemed as if I made his night. I swear this is not me being arrogant because I don't believe that this is in any way related to me save the fact that I am American. Either way, it was a really fun night and we danced until 3 in the morning.

I think that I'm personally doing better and better on the Korean front. And, we discovered these delicious chicken nuggets in the frozen food section of the grocery store which doesn't hurt. Love you all! Mwah!

Becks