About a month ago, one of Alisa's kindergartners found a salamander-like lizard around the school.  They put it in a small plastic aquarium and kept it for a quite a while.  My student's favourite thing to do at recess was to go catch bugs to feed to Batman, it's name.  Batman has since died, quite dramatically according to Alisa, but since then my students have been wanting to have a class pet of their own.  Not long after, the parents got behind the idea and Chavie let me know that soon they would be buying us a class pet - a bird.  Hmm, a chirping bird in a kindergarten class: definitely not the smartest idea, we decided.  Chavie must have passed on our concerns to the parents because on Monday morning, when I walked into our classroom, there was, not a bird, but two, much quieter pets on my desk ... crabs!  To be honest, I don't think I'd ever seen a crab up close before.  Let me tell you, they are the strangest looking creators.  I'm pretty sure ours are fiddler crabs. They look a little like this.

It's fun to just watch them.  When they come up out of the water, they always blow bubbles for a couple minutes, and they always seem to be grooming themselves with their front claws.  They are quite bazaar.
But I'm not sure any of us know how to care for our new pet crabs exactly.  They're in a pretty small container and we've been feeding them rice, which just doesn't seem right to me.  I guess we'll see how long they last.

The other big news of the week is that the Track and Field World Championships are happening right now about an hour and a half away, in Daegu.  They're not the olympics, but I still think it's cool.  Some of my friends went to see Usain Bolt run on Sunday.  Unfortunately, he false started and was disqualified.  I'm thinking I might go this Sunday to catch the end of it.  As it is, I'm enjoying watching the highlights on TV every night.

These two stories are connected because my kids have named one of our crabs Usain Bolt.

On a sad note, Japan Dan has left Pohang and gone back to Japan.  I'm bummed to see him go, but we're planning a trip to Cambodia over Christmas and we'll see him then.  Also, Frank, the board game guy is leaving this week.  He's such a great guy, a lot of people will miss him.

Thanks for reading,
Michael