shoo, korean translator. don't bother me.

so, today i taught my kids the muffin man song. you know "do you know the muffin man, the muffin man, the muffin man. do you know the muffin man who lives on drury lane. yes i know the..." and so on. and i even got REALLY clever and pulled out the lyric writing skills for some new verses, substituting muffin for pizza, bagel, and icecream on verses 2, 3, and 4. sometimes my pure genious astounds me. then just to make it a truly magical monday music class (wow! all the "m"s!!!), i pulled out the classic "shoo, fly don't bother me." so anyway, i called in jenny, the korean teacher, to quickly translate just so the kids knew what they were singing about and not just screaming out a bunch of meaningless syllables like i'm pretty sure they do most of the time. this is sort of how it all went:

jenny starts going through line by line. she says to the kids "do you know the muffin man" blah blah blah blah (a bunch of korean i don't understand.) then she stops and turns to me.

jenny: who is the muffin man?
me: uh....the guy in the song.
jenny: so he makes muffins then?
me: yup. exactly. he makes muffins.
jenny: so he is a baker? he makes bread and cake too?
me: um....i guess he just makes muffins.
jenny: so, he just makes muffins all day long? do people eat that many muffins?

good point, jenny. good point.

so moving onto shoo, fly. have you guys ever really thought about the words to that song? let me refresh your memory. "shoo fly, don't bother me. shoo fly, don't bother me. shoo fly, don't bother me. 'cuz i belong to somebody. i feel. i feel. i feel like a morning star. i feel. i feel i feel like a morning star..." you can IMAGINE all the questions.

"who does the fly belong to? a morning star is a star that comes out in the morning? how is that possible when the sun is up? what does a morning star feel like?"

right, so i think the screaming of the meaningless syllables is my best option.

mmmmmountain.

ahhhh, my weekend was so refreshing! i have been restless lately and my life has become too routine, and a weekend full of beauty and korean culture was just what i needed. saturday, i went with mina and amelia to this big hill top where you can look over and see north korea, and then to a little village nearby with ridiculously colorful and therefore awesome shops and cafes, then for vietnamese food, then to a water fountain show thing with cheesy korean music.



here's north korea. that land mass beyond the water. i got really close, huh? i think i saw some little lego-sized north koreans doing things people do when they're under an oppressive dictator. i shouldn't make jokes actually, it's a pretty sad situation.





sunday, i went with my friend lucy who to an island a couple of hours away with a hiking club and we climbed not one, not two, but three mountains on the island. a 12 hour days, with 6 solid hours of hiking. needless to say, i woke up this morning and could barely bend down to sit on the toilet without crying for help from my non-existant roommate. but it was oh-so-worth it.


the flowers you see are the korean native azalia flower. they were covering the mountains, and will only be around about a week. so we went at a good time!








i spent the day with my friend lucy (in yellow), and about 3 korean men, only one of which spoke a little english. it was not a day of deep conversation, but we still managed a lot of laughs! as you can see, i really fit with my running shorts, tanktop, and sneakers. (p.s. i'll never hike a korean mountain without climbing shoes again. i nearly broke my neck on the way down, slipping and sliding all over the lose dirt...)

anyway, those are just a few of the photos. click here to check out the entire album., with more descriptions!

dohp!

when i was about 16, my car was almost stolen. (in actuality, it was absolutely not almost stolen, not even close, but a girl's gotta tell herself things to sleep at night.) it was a friday night, i was cruising the loop (if you don't understand what this means, you didn't grow up in iowa) with my friend, and when my friend took me to where i had parked my car so that i could make curfew, it was no where to be found. we drove around the tiny little town of hull, iowa a bazillion times (there's about 5 streets in hull so it didn't take long) and to no avail. my car was gone. GONE!!! hours later, i finally walked into my parents' bedroom, ashamed and well past curfew and said in utter dismay..."my car! someone stole it! it's not my fault! it's just...GONE!!!!"

well, of course, my car was in my high school parking lot where i parked it every single day. not stolen. not borrowed. no practical jokes involved. only stupidity. i wish i could say that i had a huge crush on the boy who was with me and was distracted by teenage love, or that i had taken a fall at volleyball practice and fractured my memory (can that be fractured?), but i was not in love, and my brain was intact. sigh.

so.

last night, after a long day of work, mary and i hopped on our bikes and 7 minutes later i stood at the bike rack outside of my apartment and went for my keys in the pocket of my purse where i ALWAYS put them. no keys. so i dug through my jeans pockets, the pockets of my jacket, pulled everything out of my purse. no keys. how is this possible!?!? there's a big dangly colorful key chain (that has sentimental value to me, making matters worse) attached that makes lots of noise, there's no way they could have fallen out of my pocket, right? i was flabergasted. so, i re-traced my bike trail to school and back. no keys. i looked in the cracks of the side walks, underneath cars parked on the road, and no keys. how could this be HAPPENING!!! i made the trip to school and back several times. no keys.

so, i go into my apartment building to the security gaurd office and, in tears, explain to a blankless, confused, and incredibly un-friendly looking security gaurd. "me no keys!!! in pocket! fall out! no keys! need in apartment! need key! help!" after 10 minutes of a wild game of charades, he finally caught on and replied. "hana key! hana key! no!" (hana means one.) you've got to be kidding me. one key? i was sobbing at this point and let's be honest, seriously unrational. "SO YOU'RE TELLING ME I'LL NEVER GET INTO MY APARTMENT AGAIN!?!? I HAD THE ONLY KEY!!?!? YOU HAVE A MILLION KEYS IN THERE! I CAN SEE THEM!" and i stomped away to make several more trips to school and back with help from mary looking for my keys, and even went in to try to find my scary boss, but it was all hopeless.

i attempted the security gaurd again, who had softened up a bit to this hysterical foreigner, and finally called a lock smith. i waited. he came. i paid him way too much money for the 5 seconds it took him to open my door.

i got inside, took off my jeans, took off my shirt, took off my bra and...out falls my keys.

my keys were in my bra.

a big dangly keychain, in my bra, and i never noticed.

i know what you're thinking..."who puts their keys in their bra?" in my defense, it does make a nice holding place when you don't have pockets. really, what else can i say? i tried to get angry at myself, but it's just too funny, and i was just too relieved. 2 hours of my life, a lot of tears wasted, and 25 bucks gone.

in my bra. sorry, i just can't get over it.

the color purple.

i got new shoes!!! they are the coolest things ever. for years, i thought i didn't like the color purple, until recently i realized my dislike was completely ungrounded, and it's opened up a whole new world for me!!!! every time i look at them i nearly burst with excitment!!! baaaaa, aren't they just fantastic! my feet are thrilled.




this weekend, i dog sat for matt and mary's dog wicket. we laughed, we cried, we ran 5 miles, he nearly passed out, we walked 6 miles after that, we both nearly passed out, he peed all over my floors, hogged the pillow on my bed, scratched up my couch, tore apart my bright green loofah in my shower (who am i kidding, he basically tore apart everything in my apartment.) but just look at him. he's so ca-uuuute!!!! he may have been a little selfish in bed (as in he took up a lot of room. get your minds out of the gutter...)
but our love-hate relationship grew ever stronger, and it was really nice to have a running partner so i could be like "come on wicket, just a couple more miles...you're doing great! keep it up! you feelin' tired? push through, pain is gain my friend!" and he would respond with a very inspiring "pant pant. eye blink. tounge out." incredibly motivating. and what was even nicer is that i got SOOOO much attention on the lake path! apparently, koreans consider having one of their dogs as being initiated into the "lavish-with-attention" category.

ode to a mixed tape.

today i was headed out the door for lunch when mary reached inside the tango pango mail box and pulled out a little birthday package from my friend dena (a little late, in typical dena-style, but uber fantastic and thoughtful, also typical dena-style.) anyway, among a wonderful cookbook, wonderful underwear (the wonderful part is that it's not korean and therefore is made for people who actually have existant thighs, hips, and bums), and...brace yourself...a MIXED TAPE!!!! well, a cd actually, but for some reason it's just so fun to say a MIXED TAPE!!!! doesn't it just take you back to freshman year in high school when the boy you really like gave you a cool mixed tape with songs like "glycerine" by bush and "i'll be your crying shoulder" by...whoever wrote that song. and all your friends were like "oooohhhhh, that's soooooo cute. you're so lucky! you guys are totally going to get married!" and in that single mixed tape, all of your romantic dreams and fantasies came true.

so dena's mixed tape did just that for me. well, not exactly, but i've forgotten how great a mixed tape can be! (i'm going to keep calling it mixed tape. i just can't stop.) this is the second mixed tape i've gotten in the past month (the other from my friend ali who i met in beijing--also a ridiculously fabulous mix that i can't stop listening to) and i am LOVING them!!! i know that when you listen to an entire album you get the whole story and the emotional flow and all that, but how great is it to go from simon and garfunkel (a dena classic) to outkast to radiohead to that awesome hit from once (baaaa! i hate to jump on the once soundtrack wagon, but that song nearly makes me cry every time) to under the sea (random, i know, but come on people, that song is SO FUN to belt out on a road trip...) to over the rhine. it makes me happy.

today at school, i had my kids paint a picture of what they wanted to be when they grew up. as i was going around the table, saying things like "oooo, jae-won, what's this? a police man? wow, you would make a great police man. and what's this rocket (yes her english name is rocket)? you want to be a big rocket ship? (now you understand why her english name is rocket.) i can definetely see that as a possibility." and then i got to lindsey and kristen, who just had big blobs of different colors all over their page. "and what is this? hmmmm, let's see, you must want to be a...um...uh..." and they screamed out "teacher carolyn!" in exasperation as if it was sooo obvious and how could i not get that out of their blobs of color. there was not a trace of a human body to be found on that page. so. atleast now i know what i look like to a korean 5 year old.

remember my birthday?

it's a week late, but here's a little taste of the big birthday bash from last saturday night. it was a good time, complete with big party hats, a ginormous traveling cake, an inevitable cake fight at the end of the night, and some very angry bartenders cleaning up the damage.

so here's mary and i, 2 out of the 4 birthdays we were celebrating.

my girls! debbie, mina, amelia, and me.








here is the beautiful cake at the beginning of the night. (i picked it out myself. i was trying to find one that said "happy birthday" in korean, but apparently it's much cooler here to have it written in english.)




here's the cake at the next place we were at. very neat slices taken out. people casually taking bites from the edges.





and here is my lovely cake at the end of the night. and this was before people started taking handfuls and throwing it into each other's faces. i found chunks of frosting in my hair when i got home. (but secretly, i brought the cake hoping this is how the night would end. a great cake fight makes a party memorable.)

rain rain go away. come again NEVER!!!!

things that bother me:

• the fact that 2 days ago it was 64 degrees and today ice fell from the sky while i was riding my bike.
  
• rainy weather all day when i'm already in low spirits. or maybe that's why i was in low spirits. which came first? the chicken or the egg? the rain or the bad mood?
• people who don't know proper lap swimming etiquette. like the water-splashing little korean woman last night who, for 6 solid laps, swam so close behind me that her hands hit my toes on several occasions. i finally stopped in mid-lap, let her run into me, and said "STOP DOING THAT!!!!" i will forever be known at that pool as the girl who yells things in english. or just the girl who yells. that's enough of a novelty in korea.

things that made me smile today inspite of my bad mood:

• discovering these dot thingies on my blog and making cool lists with them.
• going to teach my private class to mi-ho and thomas after school and having them write about their favorite birthday memory and hearing thomas read "my favorite birthday was 2 years ago when my parents took me out for robstar." robstar? do you mean rock star? your friend rob that's a star? the constellation called rob? "no you know, robstar. the red thing from the ocean with the claws. it was the first time i'd ever eaten it." ah. lobster. almost as funny as me saying "horrible sex."
  
• yoga!!!! the only time all day that i had a clear head! amelia and mina! hooray for good friends who do yoga with me.
• this. watch it watch it watch it!