An Ocean Away

It is December 2, 2009 2:50pm today and it is my birthday in Korea. Yesterday I was feeling bummed out because nobody is available to meet up with me today to go around Seoul taking pictures of Christmas lights because they're busy with exams and other things. It felt just horrible........so this morning I came to school still feeling reminants of being bummed out......

That is until just a few minutes ago.

I was sitting at my desk deskwarming, watching Uta Hagen videos about acting and jotting down notes (been doing this all morning), when one of my co-teachers 연정 came and tapped me on my shoulder saying "You have to come with me because the students in 2-2 said that they didn't do part 3 and 4 of the reading comprehension yet." And like the gulliable person that I am, I totally believed her and followed her upstairs to the classroom fully prepared to read the two passages. Dang! I should've been suspicious when I saw all the lights were out in the classroom! I totally thought the lights were out because the students wanted to sleep while they wait for us to get there. Oi........*lol* So we entered the room and the first thing that struck me was that the room was glowing. The second thing that strucked me was that the students were singing happy birthday!! I was so dumbstrucked and half my brain was still thinking "I still need to read them the passage." Then I finally clued in: OOOOOOH!!!! You tricked me!!!! *pointing at my co-teacher* during the song. They finished the song and I went up to the cake (they got it from Paris Bagette and the candles are multicolored, shaped as individual letters on toothpicks spelling out "Happy Birthday." I blew out the candles and one of the students tried to pop one of those streamers but it flopped out in a ball instead of popping out in stringy colors. *lol* He also put a cone-shaped birthday hat on me (which I'll keep to remind me of this day). *lol* After that the students took no time to swarm over the cake with paper in hand as make-shift plates. *lol* My co-teacher was cutting out chunks for each table of students it was fun to watch. One student hoarded the cake from his group so the other guys at his table was chasing after him trying to get a bite. *lol* One female student (the one whom had studied abroad for 6 months) came up afterwards to talk to me and asking how I'm going to celebrate my birthday. I told her I don't know because everybody I know is too busy to meet up. Then she told me about her experience during her birthday in the States and how much she cried on her birthday because she missed her family. Yeah, we totally understand eachother. ^^

So, thank you 연정 and students in 2-2 for the birthday surprise. This is the first time a group of people outside of my family has done this for me. Friends back home, whom I've known longer than I've known you all, have never done anything like this for me before. Before today, my family were the only ones who threw me a party with cake and helped me celebrate. So thank you all for being my first non-family to throw me a surprise like this. I am deeply touched and I will forever remember what happened today.

Thank you and I love you all!!!!! ^^

Edit: I would also like to Thank Grisel and her friends for all that they've done too. ^^ When I got home from work, I saw red heart shaped balloons with happy birthday taped to my apartment door. Later Grisel and her friend took me to dinner and Grisel also got a birthday cake for me. ^^ It was the cutest cake ever!!! ^^ Thank you so much for everything Grisel! ^^