The Frosty Deal

Not owning a motorcycle for a year a half has taught me two things.
1. I prize owing one above most other possessions life:
2. They suck in the rain and bitter cold.

Number two was reinforced yet again as I rode over the Han River in 35 degree weather. Combined with a wind chill I did not care to calculate, most of the three hour ride was nothing but a necessary sacrifice to save $500 and make up for a week of convincing my boss that a motorcycle was not a surefire guarantee of personal injury.

The Comet as its called is a 250cc built by Hyosung (A Korean company that builds a number of scooters and motorcycles) and was being sold by a gentleman named Eric. He was leaving in a week and faced either taking what he could get for his motorcycle or walking away from it, more on that later.

More importantly, I had to convince my boss to let me buy this motorcycle. So at a party she hosted this past weekend, I waited till the end of the night when she had had a few glasses of "kool-aid". Then with the same smile I had worn the day I lied my way past the park ranger on Mt. Jade in Taiwan, I looked her right in the eye and pleeded my case one last time.

And that is how I found myself ridding over the Han River and getting a $2,000 motorcycle with a fill tank of gas for $1,400.

Hot Dogs and Porridge

As a child, my uncle had paid my sister, brother, and I a visit after lunch one sunny summer afternoon.

As was the custom, our uncle chased us and we ran away screaming. When he caught my brother he proceeded to mercilessly tickle him. My brother cried out for mercy, but my uncle continued his tickle assault. Within a matter of moments the hot dog my brother had eaten for lunch decorated the floor.

To this day I always keep in mind that exercising recently fed children can be messy. Thus today after a mild game of head, shoulders, knee's, and toes I was suprised to find one of my students wearing his breakfast of rice porridge on his pants, shirt, and face. So, I stopped class, took him to the bathroom, and was thankful he had not eaten a hot dog.

Find White

While substituting a kindergarten class, I had the children cover their eyes. Then I told them, "Find something blue." Cries of blue and pointing fingers flew around the room as the children found the color blue around the room.

Hoping to silence the screams of blue for a moment, I told the children,"Good job, cover your eyes. Now lets find white." Once again fingers flew about and the word white rang loudly from twenty little voices. Only, this time the children were not point at the walls and one another's clothing, most were pointing at me.

What do you like?

Of all the odd and inappropriate questions I have been asked while teaching English, "Do you like sex?" definitely takes the cake.

This question could almost be expected from an over enthusiastic middle or high school student who wanted to test out the wilder side of the English language. Yet this question did not come from one of my students, it came right out my bosses mouth.

We had barely known one another an hour before he worked this rather surprising question into the conversation. Not knowing what to say, I skirted around the question and left my boss to do what he liked with the skirt. Having this question directed back at him, my bosses felt obliged to answer the question he had asked.

So does my boss like sex? No he does not; a point which he repeated at least five times during a car ride from the airport that I will not soon forget.