'Elemeno' & 'Double-U'

Family,

I write this wrapped in a fuzzy, variegated brown shawl-ish thing. Teresa bought one of the biggest skeins of yarn I've ever seen, because she liked the color and the texture. I liked these qualities as well, but $15 was a bit pricey for a ball of yarn I'd no idea what to do with. However, Teresa found the yarn difficult to work with, and so bequeathed it to myself a few days later. Having already several scarves, I decided to try for some slippers. I quickly found that this was impractical, since the yarn has absolutely no stretch. To make the slippers small enough at the ankle to stay on my feet, was to make them too small to get past my heel. So I unraveled my work, and left the ball in a pile with my other projects. The ball was left undisturbed, but being so large, and so loosely wound, it began to become tangled, as yarn will do of its own accord. Wanting to get the ball out of my way, I sat down one evening and cast on until my needles couldn't hold any more. Then I began knitting away. I lugged the thing around with me daily, and several people asked me what I was making. I shrugged cheerfully, "We'll see!" It took a very long time to complete, but finally, last night, I knit the final stitch, and now have what appears to be a small shawl. I like it, and will leave it thus, until I can think of something better to do with the yarn, at which point it will be unraveled. At least for now, it is reduced to something, if not useful, at least untangle-able.

A week ago, Wednesday, was White Day. It's similar to Red Day (also known as Valentines Day), the only discrepancy lying with who bestows what upon whom. On February fourteenth, the boy receives a gift from his girl. On March fourteenth, visa-versa. And on Black Day, April fourteenth, those who have neither received a gift nor given one must bemoan the fact by eating Chinese black noodles (which, by the way, taste pretty good). May fourteenth, Rose Day, is the last, and my favorite, in this series of holidays: the day on which friends exchange roses.

My love of living things has risen to a new level. I decided, spur of the moment, to get myself two bunny rabbits. The idea pleased me, but it's perhaps fortunate that I had a night to sleep on the thought. The next morning the prospect of having two high maintenance animals around overshadowed the prospective pleasure of having cute little bundles of fur hopping round under foot, and I promptly called to cancel with the lady I was to have taken them from later that afternoon. Seeing my slightly downcast demeanor, Petra suggested fish. I spoke to the Dubes of her idea, and they marveled, "We were going to get fish, too!"
On Sunday afternoon we all traipsed over to E-mart and bought our aquariums and fish together. I took mine home, and with Petra's help named all my fish that evening. Unfortunately, half of my nine Neon Tetras, which look something like small sardines, died the next morning, and by that evening the remaining four and a half were down to only four. I wasn't too upset by it. Being each so identical, I'd named them all Bob. When I called out to Petra, "Another Bob died!" She replied, "That's okay, there's still a few left." The logic of that pleased me. However, by the end of the week all the rest of the Bobs had met their watery demise, along with Tinker Bell, a small feathery, white thing, and I was sad. Daphne followed Tinker Bell, Paris followed Daphne, and now the only ones left are my black, evil looking Delilah, three gold fish, and one of those sucking fish, that is supposed to keep the tank clean. He hasn't got a name yet. The biggest of the three gold fish, Hank, is all orange, but the other two have black fins and tails. I like these two the best, mostly because of the story behind their names.
Allow me to relate: At the beginning of this semester, we divided up the classes differently than they had been before. Then I'd taught only beginning students, now I was to teach all ability levels. Of course, the first thing I did was to find out how much each student knew, so that I could place him in his appropriate class. Calling random students to the front of the class by turn, I asked each to recite the alphabet. Some whizzed through it, others stumbled along, and all, with out fail, pronounced the twelfth letter of the alphabet 'elemeno.' I talked to Boyeun, who's musically inclined, and told her that we needed to change the alphabet song to be more commodious to learning the letters. That afternoon she sat down at the piano, I sang, and we bestowed upon L, M, N, and O each their own beat, as well as taking the N out from between Y and Z. No longer do students recite, "…jay, kay, elemeno, pe…" Talking with Petra later, though, we both agreed that 'elemeno' was definitely the coolest letter in the alphabet, with 'double u' coming in for a close second. And so I've named my gold fish for these two letters, because they make me laugh.

Seeing 'my kids', after nearly a month long vacation, was amazing. I hadn't even realized how much I love them. But I do, and I'm glad I do, and I'm glad that they're back. Especially James. I try not to make him 'teacher's pet,' but I think I probably root harder for him than I do for the others when they're spelling out a word, or playing a game. He's an average student, but so earnest, and cute. And I think I've been able to make him enjoy learning English, because it got back to me that his mom is pleased with the remarkable progress he's made since I've begun to teach him. That makes me very happy. Sometimes I love my job.

Other times I don't. We have more classes to teach this semester, in a much shorter space of time, so I feel perpetually rushed, and perpetually behind the game. I've begun staying late at work some evenings just to catch up on all that I need to do. I feel quite bogged down. Unfortunately, this puts my language learning on hold for some time. I had begun to take private lessons with Boyeun, but she's become just as busy as I, and we neither of us now have time. I've had a perpetual headache for four days, partly from the anxiety of not being able to meet deadlines. If nothing else, however, at least this present schedule is clarifying. I had been debating in my mind whether or not to continue to work here next year. The 'rush' has made my mind up for me. Unless something changes (which, knowing this place, could possibly happen at any given moment) I have no intention of staying. I'll go to Sogang Language Institute next year, as planned. It's rather a relief to have that decision made.

Boyeun has a brother-in-law whose cousin is one of the actors in a show that costs between $50 - $80 to attend. This young man seems a close enough relation that she was able to get free tickets for herself, me and Petra. The show was a mix between break dance and Korean traditional dance, and was absolutely phenomenal. I shan't be able to describe it, so I won't try. Let me just say that it would have been worth every penny spent, had the seats come from our own pockets. I only wished that Jimmy could have been there to see it with me, because he would have so appreciated it.
Well, suffixing my farewell turns this two page Microsoft document into three, so I'll keep it short.

My love to you all…
Elisabeth