Week 13, Monday

I feel like I’m getting better at my job. I have a better handle on what the kids need and what they can handle. And fourth grade is responding better to my discipline style.

I regaled guitar teacher with the blasphemous corn dog story and explained what an “alcohol jacket” was which surprised a laugh out of him. The subject teachers only heard the key phrase and asked him in Korean if he was wearing one. Hearing him having to explain it was a highlight of my day.

He poked fun: “I think you like alcohol. You smiled when you told S about rice wine.” (Well, pot calling kettle black because Koreans drink the most alcohol of any nation in the world— twice as much as Russia).

My love for rice wine traces back to a hike in the Korean mountains three years ago. Some mildly intoxicated men sitting in a stream offered my friend and I “막걸리” which we politely declined because one does not simply accept alcohol from men in the woods.

But later we both agreed that our one regret was not accepting— Korea is about saying yes sometimes.

I told guitar teacher “I guess you’re right. I’ll just have to open my own bar.”

Catch me in ten years when I have a global pub.

(Also when are he and I going to be friends outside of work? I’m great company.)