I'm making a change.  I'm getting rid of my computer.  I realized that I don't really need it.  I realized this because my computer broke down a little over a month ago.  I brought it to a local computer guy who speaks a little bit of English, and he told me, that I needed a new hard drive.  So, after a week, I picked it up from him thinking my computer problems were solved.  But when I turned it on, up pops a nice new Windows 7 Ultimate operating system... all in Korean.  "Unfortunately the computer guy didn't pick up that I don't speak Korean when I didn't speak Korean to him" I thought grumpily.  So I brought it back to him and he was apologetic and said he'd fix it.  But three weeks later, he hadn't fixed it.  With the help a co-teacher I found out he doesn't have an English Windows and he couldn't find one (to his credit, I think he did try to find one - I just wish he would have told me after the 2nd week).  So I took my computer back and looked up how hard it would be to download an English Service pack.  It looks like it wouldn't be too hard.  But being without a computer for a month caused me to realize that I don't really need one. I wasn't using it for anything productive anyway.  We have computers at school that I use, and I have a kind sister downstairs who'll let me use hers when I need it.  So I decided not to have one.  Hopefully that computer guy will buy back his hard drive and take my computer with it.  Though I do feel sorry to my dad who got this computer and brought it over here for me.  Sorry dad.
This change will likely bring some change to my blog as well.  I'm pretty sure I'll be able to keep up the weekly blog schedule, but they might not be finished on the same day every week.

Friday was a special day.  Why? Because it was 11/11/11 of course.  But, while this was a special day for the world, it was an extra special day for Yale Class.  You see, I have a student named Danny who is very interesting.  He usually doesn't play with the other students during break time, but that isn't a problem for him; he'd just rather play by himself.  And everyone likes him because he's so good natured.  He's Thomas' best friend (mostly because he's the only one who doesn't get mad at Thomas for being a bad friend).  But Danny is also brilliant.  He was the first one in the class to start reading Dav Pilkey's Captain Underpants series.  Now half my class reads them.  But Danny is the only one who remembers the jokes so that he can tell me at school every morning - "What is invisible and smells like bananas?...  monkey farts."  He cracks me up.
So a couple months ago, Danny discovered that the time 11:11:11 was considered to be a wish second by some.  He told us all about it and then consistently grabbed my arm during the day to make sure he hadn't missed it.  Soon, everyone wanted to know when the wish second was going to happen.  Well, just for fun, and to reclaim my students' attention, I set my watch alarm to 11:11 so they wouldn't have to check the clock all the time.  So for a while now we've been celebrating wish second every morning during our second class.  Then along came November 11.  I was going to be 11:11:11, 11:11:11 !  Danny couldn't wait.
But there was a problem.  November 11 is special in Korea for another, similar reason.  It is Peppero day.  Pepperos are stick-like crackers made by the huge food distributing conglomerate in Korean and Japan, Lotte.  Someone at Lotte had the great idea to market pepperos by making 11/11 Peppero Day, since pepperos look like the number one.  It's kind of fun, but this turned out to be a distraction to Danny's big day.  And not the only distraction.  Friday was also a special day for Poly school for another reason.  It was our field day.  I love field day, and the kids do too, but this meant that at 11:11:11, instead of being in our classroom amonst people who know about and appreciate wish second, we were outside in the middle of an intense kindergarten soccer game.  Despite the distractions, I told Danny and my class that I'd let them know when the big moment was going to happen so that we could all give a big "whoopee!" and then get back to the game.  But that was before I found out I was the coach of the red team, which meant that I was busy substituting players and cheering on my team...  and I wasn't checking my watch...  and Danny was also distracted by the game so he couldn't remind me...  and by the time I remembered, it was too late.. it was 11:20!  Alisa and I tried to pretend like we hadn't missed it and gave a big "whoopee! It's 11:11:11!"  But Danny had to see it on my watch, and when he did, he saw that I had missed the big moment, that I had let him down.  Sad.  But nothing dampens Danny's spirit - "We'll just wait until 12:12:12, December 12, 2012," he said, and went on playing.  What a good kid.

Thanks for reading,
Michael