One of my kids is named after a body odor

New Years Eve was a bit of a bust. My plans to go to Seoul fell through, so I ended up spending the majority of my night at a sketch bar in Daejeon, filled with creepy old Western men. Sick. However, my director said there's a belief that if it snows in Korea on the first day of the year, the year is blessed. It snowed on January 1st. It's going to be an amazing year.

Today was my first day back at Swaton. My kindies greeted me with their sweet hopeful faces and slipped their little hands into mine. I taught Jenny and Rania how to say "awesome." They were amused. I've grown so attached. I think my heart is going to break when I lose them in February. I'm quickly pushing that thought out of my head. I had two new classes today, so no more spa Wednesdays for me. I have an older class that's going to be a challenge. They are a lower level class, so I walked in assuming they were little tikes. Imagine my surprise when I walked in on a bunch of middle school aged kids. One boy gave me "the nod", and immediately asked, "how old are you?" in a "how you doin?" voice. Too old you for you little guy. I'm going to have to stand my ground or they are going to walk all over me. There's one boy who has glasses and braces, that the "cool guys" of the class make fun of, however, it's not because of the glasses and braces. No, they pick on him for having curly hair...of all things! They've teased him so much, that he wears a winter hat with earflaps during class. Poor little dude. I wish I could tell him his hair would be the envy of all prepubescent boys in the States...The kids' English names in that class are ridiculous. I have a Justin A and a Justin B, but the funniest one is Bio, pronounced "B.O.", like the sweaty armpit odor. Seriously, why would you name a kid BO? I couldn't keep a straight face every time I said his name. See, that's the problem. How am I supposed to teach 12-13 year olds when I'm really 13 at heart?