We interrupt this class for a .... war drill???

Any time a camera comes out, the peace signs go up

It happened Wednesday in the middle of a perfectly normal class (ie the kids were running across the room playing the game "what time is it mr. wolf"). So clearly we were busy learning when suddenly a siren sounded and a stern voice erupted from the loudspeaker. Fire drills are easy to recognize regardless of where you live so i sent the kids straight outside. As I was heading out myself, I asked one of my Korean co-teachers if fire drills were common here. She said, "oh no. Is not fire drill. Is war drill." Such is life when you live next door to a tiny, spittle-emitting dictator.

This was our "Market Day". It's when students get to use the stickers they earned for being good and/or smart to buy fun little things

On a related note, my kids are adorable. Today a group of my 3rd grade girls came up and asked if I was a Christian. I smiled and said yes. They became very excited by this, explaining that they were too (ok explaining may be too strong a word. more like saying "me christian too" with a big smile). Regardless I couldn't help grinning at their enthusiasm as they led me off to play games with them until the next class.

Clearly Market Day requires difficult choices

I also found out today that I am now the tech support guy for all the English speakers in our building. I was asked in one evening to
1) help someone figure out how to download movies from the internet
2) setup a guy's computer so he can call the US for free
3) help find korean subtitles for christmas movies.

It finally dawned on me that I had become our resident Tech when a friend asked me why his program for calling home wasn't working. As I started to head 3 floors down to his place I realized: there is an insanely obvious thing that must be turned on for this to work (a red light that has to be turned to green to work) and I didn't ask him about it on the phone. Anyone who's done this type of work before knows what came next. I was proven clairvoyant.

But once they make up their minds, they can't wait to buy!

Oh and ps, my tropical island is apparently only tropical 7 months out of the year. Today it snowed lightly for most of the day. Fortunately after adjusting to average temps in the lower teens last year, upper 30s aren't so bad. Maybe we'll even get a white christmas :)

The toughest part of the event was crowd control