Weekend Review...

Hello there. I guess you're curious about the weekend? What happened? Was there madness? Mayhem? Murdahhh? No. No. No. I had a quietish weekend. I am sorry. I spent Friday night at home...alone...watching football. Yes. i know. Boring. Saturday was less boring...in fact it was positively action packed!! I woke up at 8 and went to school to see my dahlink little tackers at the big Sports Day! Amazing stuff. There was dancing, singing, weird pinata things, running, and tears...oh yes there were many tears. They cried if they won, they cried if they lost, they cried when they fell over, they cried when their fathers fell over (seriously). It was a good morning. I missed last years Sports Day because I was moving house...so it was just good fun...well...kind of.

I made a terrible mistake. I visited the Prinicpal in his VIP balcony (like in those Roman movies where the bad guy sits in balcony and screams 'send in the LIONS!!!') and we got talking. He got excited and started calling people over...and before long I was told that he wanted me to stand in the middle of the soccer pitch and explain to everyone the differences between Korean Sports Day and Australian Sports Day. What a terrible idea! Here, in the middle of Mum and Dad racing, dancing, singing, and general merry making...everything would stop for five minutes while I gave a wee lecture about cross cultural differences! Fucking hell!! I said 'Yes Sir,' because I'm not big on suicide. Then i went to my classroom and knocked out a five minute speech that went something like -

'Dear everyone,

I have been asked to talk to you about the differences between Korean and Australian sports day. There are no differences. I know. It's amazing. Oh...wait...there's one difference. Instead of having a fat Australian come out and stand in the middle of the soccer pitch and make some pompous speech about the differences between Australian Sports Day (in the years 1980 - 1986, when he last set foot in an Australian Elementary School) and Korean Sports Day (in the years 2008 - 2010, when he has attended Korean Elementary Schools)...we get a fat Korean bloke to get up and do the reverse speech. It's incredibly insightful. We all listen. He talks. We all care. he talks. We all clap. He finishes. We all wash our faces. It's amazing.

Bye Bye.'

I din't really. No. I'm not stupid. I actually talked about egg and spoon races and grass covered footall grounds. I said that our fathers aren't so competitive as to fall over (a father fell over every single race!), and our mothers aren't as hot as Korean mothers. I didn't say that either. I probably could have. But I didn't. My co-ordinator interpreted everything I said. Which worries me. She could be making up any old shit. Sports Day was rad though...I got to spend some time with a LOT of my former students from the past two years. They were a lot of fun...some were nervous and apologetic, others were really repectful and fawning, and some were just as goofy and fun as they were when they were in Elementary School. It's sweet seeing them though. Next year, I will have students in every year of the local Middle Schools...isn't that a strange thought? I got intel from my kids about the new teacher at one of the local Middle Schools...his name is Rodney. He is quite nice apparently...which is good.

The Bird came and met me at 12:30. We had some lunch. She has had a death in the family and was a bit down. Poor wee thing. It's always difficult. She is a little trooper, but we only had two hours together, and she wasn't very happy about that either.

Following my short time with the Bird, I went to the Baseball with my friend Brian and two of his friends. His friends were both ladies...which seems normal enough to me (most of my best friends are women) but the Bird was worried. How could I do this to her? I explained to her that I invited her to the baseball...she said yes...she then said to get an extra ticket for her friend. So...I told Brian to get me three tickets. He did. Then the Bird cancelled (because it's her sisters wedding in two weeks and there was some sort of family dinner). I asked a few people to come. They couldn't come. I told Brian. He invited people. There's nowt to be concerned about in all of that! She calmed down. The game wasn't very exciting. The underdogs came and scored with ease...the favourites got smashed. Still, it was nice to catch up with the Brianator.

I went home and went to bed.

The Sunday was supposed to be an opportunity to catch up with HCW and the Bear, but the Bird was a bit down on Saturday night, and I sensed that she wanted some alone time...so I reluctantly cancelled on them. When the Bird is down, I have a lot of the responsibility for bringing her back to happy town. If I had taken her out to spend the day around non-Koreans....she would have been realy upset. So we went and watched The Hurt Locker, and walked around a park near her gaff. Then it was time for me to leave...and the Bird got really weird and upset about the fact that she would have to go home. I have never seen her like that...and I was worried. Poor Bird.

So...I went home and went to bed...forgot to ring the Bird and say night night...so she rang me at one in the morning to ask what happened. Bad boy Burndog!

Sleepy as fuck.

Bye.