Today.

Today, the girls who asked me to pray for them came to my desk 10 minutes before class started, which is about the time I start to consider filling my tea tumbler, gathering my things, and going up to my classroom.  I saw them approach my desk out of the corner of my eye and thought they wanted to stop by and say hello.  Wrong.  They came to my desk to personally escort me to class.  One of the girls took my arm and said, "Time for class, Teacher!"  She held my arm all the way to the classroom and giggled the whole time.  Heartwarming.  Loved it!

The Friday after payday, Toni and her husband Steven do a bulk shopping trip to E-Mart in their car.  A couple of weeks ago, Toni invited me along on their shopping spree and tonight was the night!  We had dinner before we started the shopping extravaganza, so of course I hit up my duk boki stand.  It never gets old to have several Korean proprietors warmly greet you as you approach their food stand.  They've started giving me little extras, like searching for the biggest pieces of whichever dippers I choose and smothering the dippers with extra duk boki.  I bet I got one and a half servings tonight, plus the traditional fish cake (Korean name: odang) broth that is served to cut the spice (apparently, this broth is also a nice cure for a hangover, according to Hyunjoo).  These three things have never happened before.  We're forming a nice little relationship.  I like it.

At E-Mart, two Korean high school aged boys with pretty intense ear piercings (for Koreans, anyway) said hi to me and struck up a short conversation.  They were a little baffled by our group: me from America, Toni from Australia and Steven from Nigeria.   They weren't sure what to make of it when Toni reached out and touched the plugs in their ears and they were even more baffled when Steven talked to them about the soccer match between Nigeria and South Korea last year.  What a random encounter, all because we were obviously foreigners.

I was kicking myself for not having my camera stashed in my bag tonight.  Korean stores are real big on tacking on extra little freebies to packages.  For example, I bought some strawberry milk, but there was also a small container of banana milk taped to the package as a bonus.  Another time, my laundry soap came with a bonus box of Kleenex.  I'm sure you get the picture.  Tonight, I saw the best bonus yet.  Accompanying a six or twelve pack of beer was a can of mild light tuna.  Perfect combo, I'd say.