Today had a lot of joyful things in it:

1. canceled classes = coffee, walnut ice cream, and a stroll around the school with the gossip girls
2. learned that I will share a room with the gossip girls at the teachers' training/hiking retreat in a few weeks. Why can I not stop thinking "sleepover!" ?
3. it started thunderstorming suddenly after lunch, and didn't stop until about 30 minutes before I went home. I had no classes, I stood at the school entrance and watched it.
4. three of my all time favorite students from Robot Electronics caught me on my way home, wanted to know what I thought of Korea's weather. I mean it when I say: what on earth would I do without these silly, diligent students who never stop being happy to see me?

See? Today had a lot of joyful things in it. I'm in the process of trying not to let my continued frustration at my after school class's situation get in the way of these things.

my cluttered desk, my favorite students

my cluttered desk, between the computer and the scissors a teachers' day present from my favorite student

In the Korean part, he thanked me for my classes, told me the history of the souvenir he gave me, and said he wants me to have a good image of Korea even though the students at our school are naughty.

the whole school had a nature outing. gossip girl is intense.

Kyung-Hwa with the student who works as a model

me, Kyung-Hwa, Shin-Jung (my main co-teacher)

Shin-Jung with the Robot Electronics 3rd graders. Right behind her is my favorite student, Shin-Chul.

Young-Gyung (my youngest co-teacher) with the Robot Electronics 3rd graders

posing for senior pictures

he begged me not to save this photo.

me with Digital Electronics 3rd graders. In the white shirt: Jae-Pil, my second favorite student, who has received a lot of chocolate from me and sings opera to me when he sees me in the hallways

Shin-Jung and Young-Gyung

today gg#1 sent me a CoolMessage and it was the best message

hey!! PAMELA
this is kyounghwa
yesterday I got the hottest korean song
I heard you like korean music.
have fun!!

There were 100 K-Pop songs attached to the message. (Okay, so there were also a few Justin Bieber/Avril Lavigne songs, but there was ALSO A SNOOP DOGG SONG.)

This is the first time Im Kyung-Hwa has sent me an instant message, and I found the font and punctuation and capital letter choices fascinating. Apparently my love of K-Pop is hot news in the office, and I can't figure out why it's happening now. I've been pretty vocal about my love of Super Junior from the beginning.

1 분 vs. 1 초

Someone put their hands on my head for the first time in over a month today, and then 3 more people did the same thing with varying degrees of firmness.

Then I cried (a little, a lot), the first time I've let anyone see me cry since I got to Korea 7 1/2 months ago.

Here are the reasons I can think of for needing (wanting?) to cry in front of U Young-Hee and I So-Yeon (gg#2) so urgently:

1. after school classes making me feel worthless as a teacher again, how can I manage this new environment?

2. guilt seeping in when you tell me you miss me, sometimes I wonder if I am a bad person for finding it so easy to leave Michigan and the U.S. and you, sometimes I wish I was the kind of person who found it difficult to leave things behind

3. I've been feeling a little fragile lately, as though I've perpetually just eaten tongue (@warmandbarky)

4. it's been a long time since I cried in front of someone, maybe it was time and maybe I knew that U Young-Hee and I So-Yeon were safe people to cry in front of and also that no one would think it strange if I felt many deep emotions while their hands were on my head

dunkin sisters

is what Park Mi-Ran calls me and the gossip girls, because we three go together to Dunkin Donuts (the only place where reasonably priced coffee is to be found) ALL THE TIME.

If we're not at Dunkin, we're brewing our own coffee in Im Kyung-Hwa's (#1) department. Today over coffee Kyung-Hwa told me that she is jealous of I Young-Gyung these days. Young-Gyung sits in the desk in my department that belonged to Kyung-Hwa last semester. I talk to Young-Gyung a lot more than I used to because of this, and to Kyung-Hwa significantly less. Only because of proximity, duh. I love Kyung-Hwa way more than Young-Gyung, though Young-Gyung and I are beginning to have our hysterical laughter moments.

Kyung-Hwa, I MISS YOU TOO. No one teases me about blind dates quite the way you do.

There's a new teachers' club, headed by Kyung-Hwa, called the "Well-being Club" (which apparently is code for "beauty club"). It contains nearly all of my co-teachers and nearly all of my favorite gossip crowd. I kind of hope we all sit around and paint our nails together. I legitimately hope it leads to me spending more time with the gossip girls again. I miss them.

ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

I don't mean to say that I've never shared laughter with my co-workers and students and friends here before. Of course I have. But these past two weeks I've been having a lot of shared hysterical laughter with my new department-mates, which has never happened before. Yena's always been in my department, but I Young-Gyung and U Young-Hee moved into my department for the new year (replacing Park Mi-Ran and Im Kyung-Hwa). We already knew each other, but sharing the same office space presumably brought another layer of comfort.

Skipping, awkwardness, the Korean verb for "to lick," and melodramatic hand gestures are involved. I think I've let out another layer of weird, and that's a relief. We'll never be able to talk about rimming, but it's nice to make weird faces at each other. The first time it happened I was so happy, I didn't realize how much I'd missed the kind of red-faced-can't-stop laughter that is normally reserved for skype-biffles.

I think I'll be happy in Park Mi-Ran's relative absence from my life. Spending my school life next to her was a little oppressive.