Amanda Takes Off...

English teachers in Korea often complain that they feel like "English clowns."

I was a Socratic (method) Clown today in math and it was an amazing class.

Sometimes, being a teacher means being a clown.

And sometimes, I need to remind myself of how damn well the Socratic Method works.

Saturday, Good Man and I went up to Mark's Lover's house to meet Mark, his lover, and...Diana and Min Gi!

We went into Rockville and had a lovely dinner, where Mark was the annoying customer with too many questions. We then wandered around the town square, where we watched a building get evacuated due to some sort of fire. Or some sort of false fire alarm.

"Oh, it's your cake, Amanda."

Diana, Min Gi, Mark, and Lover seemed to get along well, which is always a fine thing.

Good Man and I stayed at Lover's house, playing some grown-up version of Sorry!, which resulted in much cursing. In short: my husband is vindictive.

A nice weekend.

But dude, my cake didn't start the fire. I wasn't even there for cake.

"I will go buy you ice cream cake," Good Man said about my birthday. "I will go to Baskin-Robbins because you are Baskin-Robbins!" In Korea, when you are thirty-one, you are Baskin-Robbins.

"Quit calling me thirty-one."

"Hmmm, but should I put thirty candles on cake like in America, or thirty-one since you are already thirty-one in Korea?"

"Actually, in America we put an extra candle on the cake, sometimes, 'one to grow on.'"

At the grocery store, Good Man found a coffin candle. "Over the Hill: Too Old to Count" it said. "야! Put that back!"

"OK, I will get 3 and 1," he said, picking up the two digits, "Ask for something outrageous and then you get what you want."

"It's your birthday?" a coworker asked.

"Yep, my thirtieth."

"Are you married?"

"Yes."

"Oh, good, then you still have time to do something important in your life, like have kids."

"I've already done something important in my life," I said, "I've had over six hundred kids in my lifetime already."

A student gave me a gift wrapped in paper he'd written on.

I'M SO AWESOME.
READ NOW! TEACHER'S HAT! DANGER! I'M AWESOME!

Inside each O, A, and E he'd drawn a cartoon picture of a girl. "Is that me?"

"Uh huh."

"What's 'teacher's hat?'"

"My mom made me change it to an 'a.'"

"..."

So, I'm not very good at sewing. I made a few things more than five years ago but I want to get into this. This weekend I planned to make some simple, hard-to-screw-up Thai fisherman pants.

Instead, in typical Amanda-fashion, I cut out a dress pattern.

It was going OK, until I got to the sleeve. I had been battling the sleeve cap (the round part that covers your upper arm and is sewn into the armhole) for a couple of days. The pattern's sleeve cap appears to be too tall and the pattern told me to ease (squeeze) a heck of a lot of fabric into a small space. I was getting puckers, tucks, pleats.

After the sixth time of trying to follow the directions, I wanted to cry. I was tired of ripping my work out, the fabric was looking worn and it was just a mess. I considered adding an inverted box pleat to get rid of the excess fabric, but that looked weird. I considered leaving it sleeveless.

I researched options online and in my sewing books. After a lot of conflicting advice I finally eased the cap in last night. It looked beautiful, see? (That's not ironed or pressed.)

Beautiful Sleeve

And then I stretched my arms to test the fit.

Whaaaat?

So apparently there are five oceans. Who knew? In any case, I've had to teach that there are five oceans for several years now. I found a lonely globe in the cafeteria and took it. Then I found someone sort of in charge.

"Do we have any globes with the Southern Ocean on it, since it's been on maps since about 2000?"

Someone Sort of in Charge just laughed, "Probably not."

"So, can I take a permanent marker and label this correctly?"

"Ahhh..."

"OK, how about this? I'm going to take a permanent marker to this outdated thing, and if anyone asked, nobody gave me permission."

Someone Sort of in Charge laughed and nodded, "Sounds good."

I have worked in American schools for too long. It doesn't even phase faze me that I have equipment and materials ten years of out date. That's what markers and duct tape are for, right?