It was a revelation day for me at work today. I always kind of wondered why anyone would decide that they wanted to become a teacher. It seemed to me that it was way too much work for not enough reward. Well, today I found out why.

One of the kids in my class, Alyssa, has a mom who is one of the Korean supervisors, Colleen (just as the kids have English names, so do the supervisors). So I see Colleen all the time outside of class, she's very friendly. But of course, working with the mom of one of your kids can be a little intimidating, I don't want to mess up because Colleen is right there to here about it. But we were talking today, and she actually told me that Alyssa has a lot of fun in class, and that she goes home everyday and talks about what we did in class, what she learned, and that she repeats all the funny things I say during the day. Apparently when she went to Korean kindergarten she hated it, and she never wanted to go. But the other day when Colleen and Alyssa were driving to school and they had car troubles, Alyssa said "it's ok, I'll walk to school" that's how much she wanted to go. Oh, and here's the kicker, before school started when Colleen asked Alyssa what she wanted to be when she grew up, she would always say she didn't know. But now when she asks her, Alyssa says she wants to be someone who speaks English well. I think I could literally feel my heart melting. The impact of teaching can be stunning sometimes.

Now on to something else: the weather! Old Man Winter basically just shat all over Seoul. Apparently, in Korea, the weather decides to pretty much skip autumn as a whole, and move right to winter...and fast. Two days ago I could go out with a light jacket and be fine. Now, I feel like I'm back in Pittsburgh in January. It's dropped below freezing during the day, which makes walking to and from work all the more enjoyable! Luckily my apartment is pretty well heated. All the Korean apartments are heated through the floor, so walking around without socks on is actually kind of nice. I can't control the heat though, which sucks, I wish I could turn it off during the day when I'm not here. But coming home to a pre-heated abode is pleasant.

Dexter is growing by the day, both physically and in his ability to drive me insane. He is still trying to attack my hands and legs, and his teeth are getting very sharp. I'm still working on the water gun training method. It's actually funny, I couldn't for the life of me find a squirt gun anywhere around here, so I was using a spray bottle instead and it was working fine. I went to the grocery store the other day and attached to a bunch of the cereal boxes were squirt guns! So I basically bought the cereal to get the prize. I don't know how he has done it, but Dexter has managed to lose a majority of his cat toys. I seriously can't find them anywhere. I've found that the best way to entertain him and keep him busy it to tie one of his toys to a piece of yarn, and keep the other piece attached to my finger or toe, and just through it around the room, reel it back, and repeat. He keeps destroying the yarn though, so I need to find some tougher string.

I have made my first official Korean friend! Her name is Grace and I work with her at school. She is the receptionist and she usually stays until I leave on MWF. She's really nice, but super shy about using English. She really shouldn't be though, she is pretty good. We decided to go out for dinner after work on Monday, we went to a cheap place on the corner and I tried bibimbap for the first time and it was pretty good. Grace wants to practice her English, and I want to learn Korean, so I think we'll be good friends. I asked her today if she wanted to make dinner a weekly thing and she said that sounded good. So yay! My first Korean friend!