奥の細道：The Narrow Road to the Deep West

Warning: Cute kid photo-dump ahead!

I'm notoriously bad about remembering to edit photos and post them on here, but I had some time tonight and started editing, so here they are.

This was a field trip we went on to a Strawberry Farm and the Han River Research Center nearby. It was a pretty fun trip, and I got some cute shots.  I'd like to go back there sometime - it was really beautiful up there.

When we got there, they had us all sitting down, and then we started the process for making jam.  You put some berries in a bowl, and crush them up.  They had the kids using their hands, which I assume was fun for them but certainly not yielding any jam I want to eat...

JaeHyun got a little bored with the process, I think.

Strawberry Farm - Pluto - JaeHyun bored

After you crush the berries, you have to put them in a big pot and stir them, I assume with lots of sugar, but we didn't get to that part.

After we did the stirring, we sat around for a bit before we finally got to go pick strawberries.  The ajumma there only let us pick a couple, and the teachers weren't supposed to pick any, but we totally snagged and ate some.  While we were waiting, I took some pics of the landscape and played with the kids a bit.

We finally got to pick the strawberries!

We were supposed to go play near the river, but it was too windy so we just went to this place that does water processing and river research.  It was kinda boring on the inside, but it had a cute little park outside.

I took some class photos of my 7 year olds, and they turned out adorably, and definitely full of personality. From left to right: Raina, Clarise, Edward, Julius, Ann, JiHoo, Alex.

That's all for now... Next post will be crafting, since I've been putting it off...

It doesn't really work that way...

Kids are awesome.  They also have no knowledge of how anatomy works, which is great, and by that I mean hilarious.  A few months ago I ended up teaching two of my 7 year-old boys the word 'breasts' which, while slightly awkward, was preceded by one of them, Edward, doing some truly memorable to convey what he was talking about. 

The last couple days have been remarkable in the fact that I have had 2 of my students ask me about anatomical things, and so I thought I would share, because I'm sure you'll laugh too.

Yesterday, during a discussion with Mars Class (my 3rd year 7 year-olds), I mentioned my little sister, which my students always find interesting.  Raina had some questions for me about it.

Raina: Ms. Rivera, you have a big sister?
Me: No, I'm the big sister.
Raina: Oh. But, you have your children, right?
Me: No...
Raina: Really? But, then why do you have this? [patting herself on the chest and pointing at me]
Me: ....That's not quite ...

On Thursday after I take the kids down to wait for the bus I sit in the Funhouse with Pluto class until they all leave, and today Eugene and Clara came over to me as I sat down to play with my skirt. They my first-year 5 year-olds - they just started learning English in March but they pick it up very fast. And even when they don't know English, they are very expressive.  And it's so cute - they call me Ms. Bera because they don't realize my name has 3 syllables.  or they think Ri is my surname (Korean surnames are usually 1 syllable, and given names are 2) and Bera is my name.  It's really hard to be sure.

Anyway, they were leaning over my lap to look at my sequins, and Eugene pats me lightly between my legs and says, "Ms. Bera, 고주 마누까?"  (How many penises do you have?)

Clearly, one gains penises as one grows older, regardless of sex.  Should I have 23 of them?  That would be weird.
Note: I found out later that someone translated ts wrong for me.  He actually said, "Did I touch your penis?" Still weird though.

which brings us to our Korean Word of the Day! (Sadly I've not posted one of these in a while. Have to remember to do that, cause I learn new words all the time now.) 

고주 gochu : red pepper.  also, slang for penis. (small but spicy, anyone?)

Now, go forth and do good with your formidable language acquirements!