Much has been afoot at school lately. We have had a singing contest, a field trip to a zoo/botanical garden and today it was children's day, so we had a "snack party" (ain't no party like a snack party cuz a snack part don't stop). The field trip was to Seoul Grand Park. We were a convoy of four Kia Preggio minivans (Preggio = baby = family = minivan, presumably). I made all of my 8 kids wear their seat belts even though, for some unknown but stupid reason, that isn't the normal thing to do. On the subject of traffic safety: no one wears bike helmets here, not on scooters, pedal bikes or motorbikes. I don't get it. Your skulls are important, people. Anyway, the park was pretty legit. It was all botanical and whatnot. The kids' moms packed gigantic lunches, like, 2 for each kid, so I ate a lot. We saw sleeping lions, giraffes and flamingos--neato! Everything went fine until the end when a small gaggle of kids decided to take off and run down the long paved pathway. Naturally, Alex fell on his face. Crying ensued. There may be no crying in baseball, but there is definitely crying in kindergarten.

The singing contest was similar in that it went perfectly except for the pee. My class sang "I'm a little teapot." I added a bunch of superfluous actions. We were very short and stout. We won, naturally, because we are the best. Well, OK, not really. It was probably more because of the sympathy vote. Lingy, the first the she did when we got up on stage (in front of 35 or so people) was pee. It wasn't very much, and another teacher ran up and pulled her shirt down over her pants, tragedy averted. We won skipping ropes, which several kids promptly traded for farm-themed erasers with posable limbs. I didn't actually get either prize, but I did win the teacher of the month bonus, which is only awarded every three months, so I guess it's more like: teacher of the last three months, or something. Anyway, it was supposed to be 200,000 Won, ($250), but that changed into a department store gift certificate for the same amount, and then it was split between me and Matt, since we both won, apparently. Still, I was happy. It was my goal to win that since it's a vaguely objective indication that I'm doing a good job. I know I am anyway, but think of all the farm animal-themed erasers I can buy now.

Oh yeah, and I went to Spiderman 3 last night, Thursday, May 3rd. For some reason it opened earlier in Korea, so, umm, neener. Sam Raimi did well. Topher Grace was funny, Thomas Hayden-Church was well-cast, and there were a bunch of neat cameos. I liked it because it didn't take itself too seriously, yet it wasn't merely gratuitous either. Venom was pretty bad-ass. Favourite line (Topher Grace): "What the hell?!" Anyway, I think Spiderman has definitely established itself as the best of the recent Marvel/DC movie franchises. By the way, Kryce, Kirsten Dunst is the greatest actor who has ever lived.

I don't feel very bad about the Canucks, surprisingly. Luongo had an amazing playoffs: 72 saves in his first game, and .966 in his last game, for example. The Canucks' future is bright because of him, so that's good. The last goal was soft, but it wasn't the reason the Canucks lost the series. The reason was that they didn't score. The Canucks had a really good and scrappy team, and they went pretty far and could pretty easily have stretched this series to 6 or 7 games. However, Anaheim had a more complete team--i.e., one with an offense--and they deserved to win the series. I don't really get how a single team can have 2 of the 4 best defensemen in the league, in the salary cap era, yet Anaheim does. I wish Matt Cooke had played. He's really the heart and soul (or an even better cliche) of the forwards. Plus he probably would have speared Rob Niedermayer or something, which would have been funny.