Dump.

My apartment is covered in clothes and unwashed coffee mugs. And, gentle reader, it doesn't appear it will get better anytime soon. Today after work was a really nice chance to go out with some of the coworkers for coffee (club day, minus the clubs?) and tonight I'm meeting JH and Smalltown in BP for a bit of banter. Tomorrow is the lovely Kelly in Hongdae for Mexican food and catching up, and Friday is a goodbye party for one of my co-teachers, followed by the demonstratively planned "beer and good conversation" with J. Saturday is the last chance to catch the Bae Bien-u exhibition at Changdeokgung. Monday will see me potentially taking over a small after-school program for a few underprivileged youths at a library in a neighboring dong, and Tuesday it's back to Bucheon to meet the girls.

Oi vey.

In other news, I've somehow wormed my way into meeting with my third graders one last time before they move onto high school. I mean, other than at lunch time and during the cleaning period. The year one and two boys will have their exams at the end of the week after next, which means three days of ass-sitting time for yours truly. No thank you. Instead, I have tentative plans to make 500 sixteen year old boys make gingerbread houses out of frosting and graham crackers. What does that have to do with English? I have no idea. Who cares?

Today my favorite musician students came up to the EOZ and timidly peered in through the window to find me sitting around with the boyfriend crew, one of whom (my "boyfriend") I was comforting about the fact that some dumbass girl from a neighboring school was planning to meet him, but then saw a picture of him from a few summers ago when he had an army haircut and baby fat and decided to cancel. She's a bitch anyway, my little buddy. And if I was sixteen, I'd totally swoon over you and your super-serious brooding thing you've got going on. Forget about it.

The musician students are decidedly less "cool" than the boyfriend crew, who were playing me Big Bang's Iris song "Hallelujah" on one of their cell phones, and they hesitated to come inside when they saw who was there. But I waved them in. They explained that they wanted to watch a recording of a classical music performance, but it was too loud in their classroom, and would it be okay? Of course. 앉어세요. My cello student told me that this song they were watching be performed made him cry almost every time he heard it. The guitar student, who I haven't really mentioned here yet, despite him being one of my favorites, knows that I studied poetry at university and somehow, through the language barrier, in a ridiculous hodge-podge of Korean and English, I managed to explain that I didn't know much about classical music, but that at university, I had done an independent study on the Romantic poets, and that, at that time, a lot of the great composers became very important to me, because of their connection to Romanticism.

As soon as I said "Romanticism", they understood exactly what I was getting at. What kind of sixteen year old boys are these?

Answer: the kind who wear bandages on their hands for a month because the skin has been destroyed and permanently scarred from playing their instruments too much.

The guitar student, who is notably shy compared the cello student (who knows for a fact that he's one of my favorites), took the opportunity to ask me a few questions, including about the music I liked. I'm so lucky because I'm American and the US has all the great rock 'n roll. Well, don't forget England, kid. He mentioned Mötley Crüe and Yngwie Malmsteen (what the hell?). I told him I would make a cd for him tonight, and to stop by the office tomorrow to pick it up.

Really? Really? Teacher, thank you!

God. Cute as hell. Seriously, where is the mid-20s version of this kid and why hasn't he married me yet?