48 - Hallelujah!

Last day of Summer Session. Hurrah!

In celebration, I offer up these pictures of the little munchkins holding their final presentation posters. The topic was "Famous People". Now, I remember looking at pictures other teachers had posted of their students and being like "yeah, and?" but I assure you that these little 'uns have oodles of personality.

First up, Jung Eun (Jenny). She was the lone student in the class the first week and spent four hours keeping four different English teachers entertained with her witty banter and stories. (She's the one with the brother who got the cold shower...) She is very much the epitome of "cute" and wore lacy socks and some variation of ruffles and bows every day. She chose Park Ji-Sung as her famous person.

This is Na Young. A taciturn little thing, she would sit quietly unless prompted to speak, which she would do, but only very reluctantly. I heard from other teachers that she was quite the little instigator, but she never acted up in my class. She is, in her own words, "not a girl-girl", but for her famous person, she chose to research Kim Yun-Ah.

Seung-Soo was the zen calm of the group and would quietly and earnestly complete his work. He chose Thomas Edison and his pictures of lightbulbs seemed to mirror his personality.

Doo Young was by far the most entertaining and on the last day, busted out with his rendition of this song, made popular by one Rob Schnieder . He seemed to have the soul of a crochety 60 year old man in the body of a very antsy 10 year old. He scribbled all the drawings for his poster on Alfred Noble in less than 20 minutes and then wacked them onto the poster board with a glue stick, and announced himself done. I was about to protest, but noticed that his poster was actually quite good. He seems surprised in this picture, but maybe it's just his masked earnestness.

It was a great experience that is thankfully no more than a memory now.

WooHoo!

59 - Summer Storm!

There is currently a summer storm rocking it's way through our neck of the woods. Lightning just blinked outside my window and I heard what I thought might have been my neighbor moving furniture, but what actually turned out to be thunder. As a co-worker summed up her weekend activities, she said that she and her boyfriend went for a bike ride and they just went "away from the rain". That's very much the weather that we have around these parts in this season. One side of the street can be getting drenched, while the other side is sunny. The trick is to know which side of the street you want to be on.

64 - Sounds of Summer

In the summer time (usually the last week of August)we used to go to a choir school summer program run by a Presbyterian church a few towns over. I have fond memories of being in chairs at 8:30 in the morning singing warm-ups, doing call-and-response rhythm games, coloring in pictures of Bible stories, and eating snacks of mini powdered donuts and juice.

The Apostle's Creed set to music. Add that to the list of things that remind me of summer.

65 - Memories of Summer Pt. 1

I was listening to the cicadas outside the window today at work (it was 9PM).

"What would you call the sound that they make?" I queried the office.

"Buzzing, maybe?" answered co-worker M.

"It's stronger than that," I said. "More like an intense sonic chatter,"

"I never really thought about what to call the sound they make." said co-worker S. "But I love them."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because they remind me of summertime."

Things that remind me of summertime:

~The smell of sunscreen.

~Mint gum

~The Lion in Winter

~Big fat books

~Umbrellas

72- Gotta love that summer heat!

Yesterday (7/19) was Chobok (초복), marking the first of boknal (복날), which are the three hottest days of the year by the lunar calendar. In honor of the day, our boss (the illustrious Mr. Moon) generously donated a watermelon to the staff room, which we scarfed down during our last 5 minute break of the evening.

Although chicken is popular in Korea all year long, samgyetang (삼계탕; hot chicken soup with traditional medicinal herbs, including ginseng) is the most popular boknal dish. You might understand the concept ofiyeol chiyeol (이열치열; to relieve heat with heat) and accept the Korean custom of eating hot food in the summer. Understandably, Mr. Moon did not donate samgyetang to the staff room as this would have been even more difficult to scarf on the run.

Chobok is the first signal of the hot summer. The peak of the summer heat is jungbok and malbok is the last hottest day in summer. Usually each bongnal (boknal) comes at 10 day intervals. Koreans have a saying to "fight fire with fire" and usually eat hot foods to combat the summer heat during the bongnal (boknal) season. I just drink decaf hot coffee and hope for the best.

(Info shamelessly cribbed from nanoomi.net and prkorea.com)