생일축하합니다

(I believe this means Happy Birthday... although knowing my luck it probably means something bad like 'I am a rabid monkey')

Korea has stolen my youth!  Yes, that's right, you read correctly.  It has STOLEN. MY. YOUTH. In addition to that, it has compromised my ability to calculate my age in a straightforward and logical way.  You see, last week I turned 26, but in Korean age I'm considered to be 27.... well for the sake of accuracy I was also considered 27 in Korean age when I was still actually 25 in Western age.  Confused??? So you should be. I am too.  I will try and explain the Korean age system to you as I understand it, however, be warned, there is a big chance that I could get this very wrong! Here goes nothing...

Koreans measure age according to the calender year rather than the 12 month years we use.  According to Koreans, you are one year old when you are born (it seems that they count the time spent in the womb as your first year of life... never mind that it doesn't account for 25% of that year).  After that you age one year with the passing of the new year rather than a birthday.  So, I was born on March 12, 1982...  By Western standards, I just turned 26.  By Korean reckoning I actually turned 27 on the Lunar New Year that passed in February and didn't age at all on my birthday last week.  If I were born in January, however, I would have been 1 when I was born and turned 2 at new year (which would've been around February sometime) - when really I was less than 2 months old! I would have turned 3 when I was only 13 months old... get it?? It's taken me 2 months to try and wrap my head around this...

Anyway, it was my birthday on Wednesday and true to form, I had an awesome day.  To be perfectly honest, I was missing my people a bit on Tuesday night (yeah, that's you guys). I was thinking about birthdays gone by and remembered a string of parties filled with friends and family.  It was weird to think that I wasn't going to have that this year - but before I had a chance to get sad I received a phone call from my supervisors at work telling me to be out the front of my apartment in 10 mintues.  I had no clue what for, but I went outside and was whisked off to Costco (a big American wholesale supermarket) where I was able to buy a bunch of things (in bulk) that you just can't get in the Korean supermarkets (I won't bore you with the details of everything I bought- but I got CHEESE!  Good, decent, non-orange-plastic-coated, glorious cheese!).  That boosted my spirits like nothing else could and to top it off, my supervisors paid for a whole bunch of what I bought as a present to me!  Sweet!

 The next morning I woke up, had a quick chat to my family while opening presents (awesome- all of them awesome - thank you!) and ran out the door to go to work.  I opened the door to find this....

My new neighbour and co-worker, Mardi, had got up early and decorated my door!! How sweet is that!?!?  Thank you Mardi!

Then later at school, some of my afternoon classes obviously got wind of the birthday news and I walked into one of my classes to find this...

This is the work of a class of 5 girls I just started teaching a few weeks ago.  

My suspicions were aroused that they were up to something when I heard them asking other teachers how to spell 'Birthday'... too sweet!

L: Amy, Suan, Sally, Heather and Lina.

Unfortunately, I don't think you can't see the words they accidently wrote backwards.... like mirror image backwards - I didn't have the heart to tell them.... so cute!

Another class were alerted to my birthday last week when the saw a package from home arrive to the school.  I've been teaching these kids since my first day here and love them!  They're about 9 - 10 years old (in Western age), so eager to learn, so well behaved and all 'round awesome... genuinely great kids. 

Anna- the class sweetheart... I'm sure you can see why.

John - how cool is he with his leather jacket teamed with a pink button up shirt over a pink polo!  His glasses also have a fluro orange twinge and he has the coolest spike-do I've seen since the 80's! 

Don - the class clown (and the boss's son).

Samira - the baby of the class (in terms of age, not maturity that is... the boys would have to take that prize)

Love (yes, her name is Love, but it totally suits).  Love is Samira's big sister and looks after her in the most gorgeous sisterly way.  Love is, without a doubt, one of the sweetest and smartest girls I know! 

And this is their board decoration...

I love you's

Don said I'm a big flower (whatever that means - he was looking at me for approval whatever it was, so I don't think it was an insult), then Anna got mad because his comments had obscured her "We love you" and "We happy" messages. After a quick peace treaty they were friends again.

This is my favourite (it's from Love). "You are best (good) teacher".  I love the clarification of best as (good)!

It didn't stop there either, next I had homework and work books decorated with birthday wishes and messages of love...

These say something along the lines of "Amy teacher I love" and "Great Day Amy teacher"... Will have to work on their grammar before Christmas card time...

Upon returning to the staff room, I was presented with a giant tiramisu from the school - which we then proceeded to eat with chopsticks.  No kidding.  There are no forks in the school (except my snazzy Tom and Jerry fork), but there are plenty of spoons - however, chopsticks seem to be the cake utensil of choice in these parts! It made the occasion all the more Korean, but certainly didn't help me eat less cake.... It sure was tasty though. 

After work drinks naturally followed and continued for much longer than they should have considering I had to be at work at 9am the next day.... but what are birthdays for if not for enjoying time with nice people!?