CAN'T SING

That’s not news to anyone who knows me but today it was confirmed that I cannot sing a note. The only person I’ve tortured with my singing here is Saeyoon. I’ll ask her if she knows a song and then I’ll sing a bit of it. After doing this a few times she declared, “every song sounds the same”. So now when I ask her if she knows a song, I’ll say, “I’d sing it for you but it will just sound like all the others”. She thinks I only know one song and keep changing the words.

So I can’t sing a song. Today it got down to notes. I was doing a class with my 2 middle school girls who I enjoy being with. They’re 14 (American age) and it’s interesting to hear what they say. One girl (English name of Ginny) said today that Mondays are good days. I’ve never heard that before and told her. Then I asked her why and it’s because she sees “Longman” on the bus on Mondays. I was confused as to what’s a “Longman”. Ginny is quite tall (about 5’8” or so) and “Longman” is a tall senior in the high school that’s attached to the middle school she goes to. She has a little crush on him. I told her it’s not “long” but “tall”. But she insists on calling him “Longman”. It’s cute. She also sees “Longman 2” on Mondays. That’s right, another tall and cute high school guy.

The girls were pretty wired and I just let them ramble on because it’s entertaining and they have to work without knowing it to explain things to me. Then they started singing and it got to where they would start with a low note and alternate going up one note each time. They asked me to join in so in the spirit of the class, I did. After going through this they said to me that every note I sang sounded the same. So it’s confirmed. Either I can’t sing a note, or Koreans are tone deaf.

The little company I work for is having a Christmas party for the kids on Friday for dinner. Guess where it’s going to be at? OUTBACK. Can you believe it? It’s going to cost Kyle a small fortune but what the hell, it’s his money. I wouldn’t take 40 kids to Outback but he says some places don’t like having large groups of kids but the American chains love it. Of course they do. It’s easy money. I wonder if Outback has a party room?

Tomorrow morning I am teaching Chanukah to Robert’s kindergarten class. He is trying to teach his kids about all the seasonal holidays that occur this time of year. As the only Jew in Korea, he asked me to “teach” Chanukah and I said yes. Of course I have no menorah to show them or dreidel to play with. I think he’s bringing in Play-doh so we can make dreidels.

It’s kind of funny having the atheist Jew teach Chanukah to Korean kids who wouldn’t know a Jew from a jackrabbit. I like what he’s doing though in trying to introduce his kids to other things that are unfamiliar to Koreans.

I only slept an hour at a time last night before waking up to cough out a lung. I was dead tired. It was horrible. I am so sick of it and am growing to think this will never end. Maybe I’ll have to start wearing one of those masks over my mouth that so many Koreans wear to avoid pollution. They look silly but they’re probably not coughing up lungs.

Sometimes I just have a couple of things to say. When the post is short I feel I should be writing more, but if I write more now I would just be padding. I just wanted to mainly mention my singing being insulted. That’s done and I’m outta here.