Happy New Year!

When it came down to it, organizing my desk was just not as interesting as making a juice-box friend.



I was left alone in my office with 7 boxes of milk. I'm working my way through the chocolate so there'll be more juice box friends coming and if I'm desperate I might even drink the nasty strawberry milk.

Happy New Year everyone!

A collection of blurry photos

My class schedule was goofed this week so I only had my cell phone to take pictures of their thumbprint cards, but if you think poor quality is going to stop be from posting this cute-fest, you're sorely mistaken.


On the inside this one said:

Dear Santa,

I think I was a good girl this year. I would like to have a cat for my Christmas present. Please give me a pet! My pet dead so I was very sad. If I have a cat I play with my cat and I wash it too. So please give cat for my Christmas present.

Well Merry Christmas!
From Ha Yuan


In case you can't read, the people are labelled "teacher", "me" and "teacher's boyfriend."


I want to play with my friend and I go to the mountain and take the bugs for Christmas. I play so much when the snow I play snow fight with my friend and make the snowman with my friend.

For Christmas HE WANTS BUGS, omfg! Not even for Santa to give him bugs, but he just wants to take them from the mountain himself, could you BE more prescious? I'd like you to try telling Johnny Western-boy that this year for Christmas he's allowed to go get his own bugs. I smell a Christmas stabbing.




Dear Santa,

Hey Santa Hello I want big house and car give me a present oh please. You don't give me you are die ok?

Bye Santa.

I'm so happy because of you.

Ahh! That face? The sledding thumbprint picture he thought of all by himself? He's so happy because of me??? Come ON. I just want to pinch his puffy little cheekies.

Tomato Soup

I love canned tomato soup, but I don't love it for 3000 won. This soup is a pretty good facsimile of Campbells, becuase isn't that the standard by which we measure all soup?

Tomato's are getting expensive round these parts, so I suggest buying the discount ones, where the hide the rotton side down in the package but you totally know it's there. Some people might shy away from eating partially rotting food, but my dad used to tell me that the mold on bread was just penicillin, so I have no qualms with cutting away the bad parts of a tomato.

Roughly chop 4 or 5 tomatos and throw them in a pot. When they've released all their juices you can blend or mash or smoosh them up a bit and add water (or milk or cream), some bullion cubes, salt and pepper and let it get jiggy for a while. Once it's groovy, add somewhere between a tsp and a tbsp of sugar to cut the acidity. Then run it through a sieve to remove the skins, if you're into that kind of thing, and you're good to go. Grilled cheese sandwhich optional, but recommended. Likewise for sugarless saltines.

My Glue Gun is my BFF

Glue guns are so much fun. For 5,000 won you can adhere anything to anything via molten stickiness. What's not to love? Not my sparkly pincone wreath, that's for darn sure.


Start by taking your least favourite coat hanger and bending it into a circle. Leave the hook bit, as it will continue to serve as a hook. Then glue bits of nature all over it; I started with some green pine needle-y branches, then added aumtumnal leaves and glittered pinecones, which appear frosted in this photo but I assure you that is all glitter, all the time. Once you're finished you're going to want to take a picture of it because you're definitely going to knock it over upwards of two times and destroy it immediately.

Wreath no.2:


Wire hanger circle again, then glue pinecones on top and green needle clusters underneath. It looks a little sparse, I'M AWARE, so I think I'm going to add another ring of pincones to bolster it up a bit. Holiday bonus: this wreath doubles as an Elizabethan dog collar thing.

Snowfrakes: just cut away everything that doesn't look like a snowflake, but for the love of god don't cut the seam. I suggest using old speech contest papers for this craft so you can chop away at children's dreams.



And finally, le piece de resistence; Christmas tree, my christmas tree, how lovely are your makeshift branches. I'm not even going to explain how I did this because I have eyes, I know how it looks, and I know you dont want to recreate this fragile, crooked excuse for a tree. I wanted to add more decorations and lights, but the branches dried out and now I can't even touch it or the whole thing will blow into the wind. Merry Fucking Christmas Charlie Brown.

Not to worry though, it'll look great with all the presents stacked up underneath. The presents my mom forgot to send in time for christmas. Merry Sometime-in-January everybody! I hope Santa brings wine this year...

The Winner

This shirt beats all other Konglish shirts. You will never see a better shirt. I want you to understand that are about to see the winner of the 'who can find the best konglish shirt' competition that we're all unofficially playing. This is it. Are you ready? Maybe you should have some tp handy in case you pee your pants. Okay, here it goes:

Call to arms for all
chunkily-penised boys
to do her right and
do her good still it
mattered slut literacy
was its most defiant

On the tiniest 4th grade girl who couldn't understand why I wanted her picture so much. Heart.

Cultural Tips for the Culturally Insensitive

This week's tip comes from grade 5 chapter 16: How was your vacation? This cultural tip has seemingly nothing to do with the lesson, but it's still nice and offensive so they threw it in just for funsies. Enjoy.

1. Nursing home in America.

Usually, in America, the elderly live alone. Unlike the elderly in Korea, who are supported by their oldest son. In America there are certain care centers for elderly people unable to care for themselves called, nursing homes or retirement homes for the aged. These are not government supported centers. The cost to live in these centers is quite high. Therefore the people who live on a pension can't afford to live there without assistance. They envy the Oriental family system because their golden years can be very lonely.

Don't we all envy the Oriental family system because of its inherent superiority? The elderly in Korea are never lonely, especially when their son or daughter has a baby and they take it away to live with them instead. What a great way to not be lonely. How about the elderly that are outside at 4am digging through the trash cans for bits of paper so they can drag it around on their trolley. How could you be lonely with all that paper to keep you company? If you think my grandmother is envious of your family system you are sorely mistaken because she thinks you live in dilapidated huts made of rice paper and don't use forks because you haven't figured out the technology yet. She's a racist, but then so are you. I guess we have something in common after all...