christmas party, take four

Well, I missed last week's update, it's true, but I'm back just in time for Christmas. It's hard to believe today's Christmas Eve, for several reasons: 1. I'm working today. 2. We don't have a Christmas tree in the house. 3. I'm not at home.

The first reason is probably the most shocking. I get Christmas day off, Tuesday, but I work Monday and Wednesday... lame. I guess that means no crazy drinking binge on Christmas night, which was Meghan and my previous plan. Ah well, it's for the best. I feel like there's so much I missed in the past two weeks, but I guess I'll just offer the highlights.

I'm starting to really get devastated about my third graders leaving. Especially the Noan students, which is pretty unexpected. Granted, I got closer to all of them, I think, than at Dongkang, because of the festival dances, but they really surprised me last week. I arrived at school Monday, and I could see students in my English classroom through the window, but they had left by the time I got inside. All that remained was about fifty blown-up balloons on the floor. I just smiled and went back to the gyomushil. Apparently my co-teacher didn't know anything about their party plan, because she came in and asked me "Did you make the balloons?" I replied in the negative, and she said "Hmm."

So when third period finally rolled around, the students came down and told my co-teacher not to let me come to the English classroom until they sent for me. And they spent 15 minutes of our English class time decorating the room, which was fine. My lesson wasn't too awesome anyway. Then they led me down the hall blindfolded. The door had three balloons taped to it that said "Miss." "Camp." "I love you." They kept me blindfolded for ages, guiding me along what I later saw was a path lined with balloons that they had taped to the ground. It culminated in a heart-shape of balloons, also taped to the ground, where I was presented with an expensive cake. I'm amazed I didn't start crying then. They'd also brought in a bunch of snacks and arranged them on the tables, and written adorable messages on the dry-erase board and on a big goodbye card.

Then they asked me if I wanted to play a Korean party game. There were a bunch of paper airplanes on the ground, and they had actions written inside, so I had to open them and do the actions.

1. Kiss (only man)
2. Kiss (only girl)
3. Hug (only man)
4. Hug (only girl)
5. Sexy dance
6. Hip dance (I'll let you imagine this one, knowing that Korean people call their asses their "hips")
7. Sexy dance with man

I completed all of my missions, much to the chagrin of three boys, as I'm sure you can imagine. But I'm sure the kids got a kick out of making me feel dumb.

Then next period, we did it all over again with the other third grade class. A second cake, a box of presents, the works. This time I made the kids do the dumb stuff on the airplanes, which was nice. I love that class even a little more than the first one.