no more tears

It's official, Lily has stopped crying at the sight of me! And now, with the prompt from the Korean teachers, she will even approach me on her own. Today at school we had a special; Cookie House Day! I read Hansel and Gretel to all of the kids and then we made cookie houses. The cookies houses (I guess they don't have gingerbread here) were cardboard boxes covered in Saran wrap. Jasmine teacher informed me they didn't use Saran wrap last year and when they went to eat the cookies off the houses, the box would stick and the kids would eat it anyway. Good to see we're making improvements. Anyway, so all of the teachers got one house, one class and a bowl of corn syrup and a paint brush. As we painted the house the kids stuck either wafers, crackers (I'm talking saltines), fruit loops, chocolate cereal, chocolates and pepero to the houses. None of these things, except the chocolate bits, held any appeal to me. Next time I'd like to be consulted about the cookie selection.

After lunch (which sucked today, fried crap, potato soup, and dried fish with peanuts- I ate the kimchi!) the kids were let loose to eat the houses. Holy god. You would think these kids hadn't eaten in months. They demolished the houses and were licking the corn syrup off of them. Ew. A few minutes into this and Lily walks across the room to me, looks up at me, and hands me a saltine dripping with syrup. It just about melted my heart. Then I see Sienna and Amy teachers (who I'm pretty sure don't like me) clapping and cheering Lily on. Even though she had some coaxing, she still delivered, and most importantly, didn't cry.

It was a good day at school. Tonight I am going to an event at Vino Vin, a new wine and tapas bar in Itaewon, for a diplomat event. I am not, believe it or not, a diplomat, but I know one. And I guess for 10,000 won that's good enough to go network, sip wine and snack on tapas. Afterward I'm off to Haebongcheon for a birthday celebration for Jo. I think this is her 31st and she's trying to play it low key. Whatever. More wine I'm sure.

Tomorrow= mac and cheese cooking class! Nice way to end the week :)