Just can't win
So over my break last week I went to H&M in Myeongdong and Audrey and I bought all of it. Well, pretty much. We came home with 5 shopping bags between us, not counting the one I'd already gotten the day before. It was cool though - I needed new clothes, I haven't bought any in about a year, and then Caroline and Audrey proceeded to go through my closet and declare 3/4 of it reprehensible and/or morally offensive (sigh. goodbye corsets and the skirt Trevor gave me when I was 16 - I'm trying to be a grownup now), so it turned out to be a good thing that I had bought so many.
Of course, what is sold in Korea tends to be Korean fashions - darker colors and empire waists, when the clothes have any shape at all and aren't just muted, upscale versions of the 80s tights and a giant shirt designed to make you look like a man - or in the case of Korean girls, hide your lack of assets. A few weeks ago I bought a shirt at COEX and when I asked the salesgirl what she thought, she said, "It's too small." It wasn't - I just have curves and they were filling out the shirt instead of being swallowed by it. Caroline, however, is very into fashion and, in the tradition of previous female friends of mine, made it her mission on Saturday to have me try on as many things as possible.
One of the Korean fashions that I've never really been a fan of is the whole belting at the waist thing, but Care insisted so I'm trying it. I wore a shirt on Tuesday with a belt, and I was kinda uncertain about it, but my coworkers assured me that it looked fine. But of course, my kids always have things to say. When Ryan came in to class, he looked at my shirt and my belt and seemed a bit confused.
"Ms. Rivera, why belt?" he asked
"I like belts. Don't you?"
"Yes... but, Ms. Rivera, why there?" He pointed at my shirt. "Belts don't go there, it goes here," he told me, pointing at my hips.
I just laughed and told him it could go there too, but he remained convinced that I was wearing my belt wrong.
The 7 year-olds have been reading a book about Abraham Lincoln lately, and one of the things we talked about has been how things were different in that time. No cars, no electricity - the kids seemed very disturbed at the idea that there were bugs in beds that Lincoln slept in. When Mars and I talked about it today, we discussed how it was a long time ago, 141 years, probably around the time that their grandmothers' grandmothers lived.
"Ms. Rivera," Clarise asked me, "were the dinosaurs alive then too?" I laughed because it was one of those funny things that kids say because they have no concept of time, but when you really think about it - it's hard to fathom stuff like that. In one of my afternoon classes tonight we looked at a book about galaxies, and as Olivia and I flipped through it, I tried to tell her how many stars there were and how far away they were and how old they were, older than the Earth! It was hard to wrap my own mind around - I can't imagine what it feels like to be 7 and trying to understand things like that.
I've been slacking recently - I didn't get all of what I planned done during my break (surprised?), hopefully it will be managed at some point this year. I still want to redo this blog and get more photos up and about. it's a process, though.
Here's a word of the day for you! I will probably have some more later, when I learn to spell them. I've been watching a drama called Secret Garden and learning new words, so hopefully I will remember to ask Jerry about them when I see him on Saturday. But for today -
눈사람 nunsaram = snowman.
Pretty straightforward. 눈 is the word for eye, but also for snow, and 사람 is person. Sadly, there is not enough snow to make a snowman, just this ugly hard slush that's been hanging around threatening the unwary with death by falling-on-your-ass (or whatever part happens to hit the ground first - on Monday my bike literally slide out from under me as I attempted to make a turn off my street). Also sadly - I ordered new winter boots, decided to walk to school yesterday, and got awful blisters. Not by any means as amazing as the one I acquired my first few weeks in Japan, but still. -sigh- Just can't win.