Murmur mur mur mur...

I have an extremely sweet female student that I frequently run into while walking to and from school, she's a little roly-poly-esque but she has an open, honest, amicable face and her personality is absolutely to die for. The only problem is that she murmurs, has a slight stutter, and only speaks to me in Korean. None of these are really problems on their own, and i'm certain that when talking to others she enunciates clearly enough for them to understand but when she speaks to me in a tongue that is so unfamiliar to me, I find that I absolutely cannot understand even a word of what she says to me. Now, i'm not claiming that my Korean is very good, in fact it's quit dismal, I do however, manage to understand by listening carefully and clueing into key words that I know, like "Bap-rice", "Mogo-eat", and "Bali-hurry". I ran into her in the hall today and she escorted me to the teachers office; the entire time it took for us to traverse three floors, and two wings of the building she was murmuring energetically towards me. I tried my hardest to understand her, but sadly I could not. We finally arrived at the teachers office, I took a last look at her, smiled, and said "Chalga-Bye", she positively beamed up at me and responded, "Bye teacher!" Clear as day, no murmur, stuttuer, or Korean in sight. GAH! If only that clarity had been displayed 5 minutes earlier!

This is a brilliant example to me that my students care about me, want me to speak Korean, and just really want to spend time with me. Perhaps i'll have to grace the halls with my presence more often. ^.^

Also, I was sitting at my desk when one of my co-teachers, who speaks no English, came up to me, motioned at cup and said "come." I picked up my cup and obligingly followed. She led me to the teachers room where she began spooning rinds of orange (I think?) and honey (I think?) into my cup, she filled up the water heater and then dumped hot water over the top of the whole thing. "Youja Cha" i'm not sure exactly what it is, the side of the jar said "Honey and pine needle tea" but I don't see any pine needles....

Anyeong!