Monday, May 18, 2009

Teacher's Day:

Last Friday was Teacher's Day in Korea. Teacher's Day at Poly is almost like Christmas morning when you were a kid. The gifts pour in, the kids love you all day, and you have a silly grin on your face from 9-7 (at least I did). 

Like I mentioned before, I love teaching kindergarten. 9:35-1:50 is the best part of my day, and even though many days I'm ready to put those kids on the bus at 1:50, I am always very happy to see them on Monday morning. They welcome me with a big "good morning" and a huge grin on their little six year old faces. I feel like Superman five mornings a week. 

Friday, at first, was like any other day. I grabbed Starbucks and yogurt on my short 60 second walk to work. I prepped for my classes and did some marking, and then I made my way down the stairs to my class. I was greeted by three familiar faces: Johnny's Mom, Sean's Mom, and Stella's Mom! To my surprise they had a cake for me (a whole CAKE, who do they think I am!?) In addition, they had an envelope for me and a card. They all hugged me and told me how much they appreciated my hard work, etc. etc. You know, I'm not going to lie, I felt good. I waited until break time to open my gift, but I was shocked. The moms put a collection together and gave me a 200 dollar gift certificate to one of the department stores here in Seoul. I also got a 50 dollar gift card to Starbucks. You would think that was the end of it, right? My other kindergarten class gave me a 100 dollar gift certificate, a jacket from Zara, and Bulgari cologne. See, I told you it was like Christmas! Thanks to the generosity of my kindy moms, I happened to spend all my gift cards this weekend. I'm now the proud owner of some new running shoes (courtesy of Puma) a new watch from Levi's, and a few clothing purchases from the Gap. 

I don't need gifts from the parents in order to know that I am doing a good job. Most days I love what I am doing, but the gifts are always a nice bonus. 

2 comments:

Erny said...

those are some awesome gifts!

sarah said...

good grief! thats frigging awesome.

hmmm... move to korea... hmmm