PLUTO IS A PLANET

"When I was your age, Pluto was a planet." I've had to tell two different classes this because they had presentations this week and some were doing space. I told them that if they said Pluto wasn't a planet, they'd fail my class. I've successfully indoctrinated many students. In the same class, one child ran up to me with a planet glued to a stick and asked, "Is this Uranus?" I busted out laughing and had to leave the class. Call me childish, I don't care.

Yesterday was the end of the first month of this semester. Parents only pay one month at a time so the students who want to quit, yesterday was their last day. Two of my students quit, and I really liked them. One of them was a really smart little kid, a pain in the butt, but I liked her nonetheless. I feel a little bad because I accidentally made her cry on Tuesday, so I feel as though I may have had something to do with it. She did a really good drawing and I complimented her on it. Then I said "that's a good picture your mom drew. Tell her I said I like it." And she said "I drew it!" "Of course, of course, tell your mom I like it." She started tearing up at that. I had no intention of making her cry or anything, I was just having some playful banter with her, or so I thought. She was the worst student in the class, though, so that probably had a larger part to do with it.

I was supposed to get internet in my apartment yesterday morning. They were supposed to show up at 10am, but by 1:45 when I had to leave for work they still hadn't shown up. My boss had them re-schedule for this morning at 11, but when I had to leave at 3 they still hadn't shown up. They may show up Monday. It's starting to remind me of Time Warner, remember that John?

I also tried to get a cell phone today with Grace's help, but that didn't go so well, either. There are three companies in Korea: LG Telecom, SK, and KTF. SK is apparently the best, followed by KTF and finally LG. I went to SK and they have a 50 minutes/month plan for W20,000. That sucked...I assume that was a foreigner plan b/c I've heard some places won't even serve foreigners. Then we went to KTF who said that because my visa says I'm leaving next February, they can't give me a 1-year plan, which also means I'll have to pay full price for a phone. I offered to pay for the entire year upfront, but they said they don't do that. That's insane, who wouldn't want that money in their pocket upfront!? Basically, I have to contact the immigration office and have them change my stay to at least 1 year from today (I wouldn't have to stay that long, they'd just "allow" me to stay that long), or I can buy a phone and bring it in for them to activate. The plans aren't as cheap as I had been told, either. The cheapest one (and the one I'd likely get) would be 200 rollover minutes/month for W31,000, plus W1900 for 100 text messages. That's a little less than $25. Oh well, I may do the pay-per use, but just like in America it's not nearly worth it.