I hate to go out on limbs, but I'm feeling so primordial I might just delve into my inner-monkey and swing from this elated and elevated branch under my feet.

I had the most rewarding and inspiring day yet in Korea.

It all started three days ago when I began teaching my winter English intensive class. Basically, I have 3 hours a day with 15 kids to teach whatever I deem dire and delightful. The first hour I split it half and half with writing and reading. My students are presented with a prompt each morning, given 20 minutes, and are expected to write SOMETHING. There is no minimum requirement, no level of expectation, no grade given... I simply kick back and wait to filter the gold nuggets during the reading portion. They know that I promise them regalement and sweets afterwards, but as a teacher I think it's necessary to increase the fluency with kids. By having them read and write everyday (at their level and interest) for one hour, I believe, is increasing their confidence in "linguistic Qi". Yes, that's right. The flow of potential linguistics accumulates within their frontal lobe and like a fire-cracker will explode from the capital orifice when the fuse of reluctance extinguishes. (boom goes the Korean student)

Anyway, back to my crackin' day...

Today was a free-flowing exercise inspired by the five senses. I set-up five stations designed to isolate each one of the five senses. At station one I enclosed the TV in a box, instructed them to plug their ears and watch scenes from A Scanner Darkly. Station number two had them blindfolded and sitting listening to the song 3030 by Deltron (aka Del the Funky Homosapien, yeah, that arrogant prick). At station number three I had the winner of all sensations: Oobleck. In case you forgot, it's 3 parts cornstarch to 2 parts water and it makes a killer procrastination device or is just plain wholesome fun. Then at station four I sliced a chunk out of my Old Spice (deodorant is practically non-existent in Korea), put it in a cup and covered it with a coffee filter so they couldn't see it. But the trick of all tricks was at station five where I blindfolded children and force fed them 99% Cacao chocolate chunks under the guise of education.

The lesson was a huge hit with the kids, but most rewarding was the writing they produced for me. I did not make them write much, but I had them write how each sensation made them feel. I got responses like, "I am very angry", "I feel punished", and "Is this crayon?" from the Cacao station. I got some great responses from the Deltron 3030, but the one that I thought I'd get the greatest responses from was almost all blank because the children a) couldn't express what they felt with the oobleck b) did not know how to describe it, even in Korean, and c) spent too much time playing with it than writing.

That was pretty much it for the day. I never have felt better about teaching. I am 100% positive that every child left with a smile on her face and that's all that matters for me. It only got better at the private lunch I had with my host-family, co-teacher, and principals. I came into it thinking:

"This is it. This is what they warned us about at the Fulbright office. I am being asked to change home-stays and they feel this is the only diplomatic way to do it. It's like an intervention. No, it's a band aid. That's what it is. I'm being kicked out of my home-stay and fired in one big fell swoop. Essentially, that's like a deportation isn't it? Oh god! Fuck you Fulbright! You didn't warn us about deportation!"

Whew! It turns out, they just wanted to praise my teaching beyond reason, exaggerate my abilities at Korean, and invite me to continue teaching with them the following year. I explained my immediate future plans, but promised them that I'd return someday, at least to visit.

The "drive" my parents took me on after lunch was probably the funniest experience I had with my host-family to date. In essence we parked ourselves on the fashion district road because that's what people do on that street is stop in the middle of the road for no apparent reason. It must be the equivalent of cruising the strip, but as I've come to realize in Korea, police don't do jack squat in this country. There will be a car parked without a driver in the middle of the road at traffic hour, blocking buses, and pissing off anyone within a one mile radius of the scene, and the police will cruise up to the car, blare their horns and wait for the driver in order to say something futile, irrelevant, and that disempowers them as an authoritative force. No tickets are issued. Nothing happens. I don't get it. In America, cops are constantly busy with crime, but in Korea crime is about as occurrent as Haley's comet. So why is it that the Po-9 don't issue a ticket to some imbecile who thinks he can leave his car unattended on the main drag? Anyway, that's what my family was doing, but we stayed in the car while my host-mom reached over my brother to give shout-outs to her ajuma friends at their boutiques. After crawling through town, we went to get some coffee, which my consumption of such brew confuses my host-mom thoroughly. She seems to believe that if I decline it once, I hate it. So when I order coffee or say that I like it, she thinks I'm lying and/or don't mean it. It's a power struggle for the waitress to finally scribble Mocha on her pad, but hey, at least I am getting to practice some Korean with my host-mom.

When it comes down to it... I finally felt desired by both my family and school. Maybe it's just been the cultural differences in showing appreciation, but having a big lunch at the beginning of my second semester clinched it for me, even if I get the shaft on cultural and social invitations for the rest of the year.

Word.