I love Fridays. It's an easier day for a few reasons. I generally give tests--moderately quiet day of grading and studying whats in my notebooks during class while the kids are busy bouncing up and down in their chairs, whining "teacher, hard"--or we play games. I prefer the games, though usually it deteriorates past anything you could call educational in a hurry. This Friday I had to jump from one game back into the book--Boring--when half the class was trying to play the game and the other half was either wrestling in the back and throwing chairs around or stealing the game magnets to use to their own ends.

Perhaps the most important reason that Friday is easier is simply that it's Friday, a day the evokes a good mood no matter what the kids are doing. The day is akin to the start of an anticipated meal, or strapping yourself into a roller coaster for the first time after wading through a ridiculously long line--it's the imagination's inflation of what is possible that makes it so pleasing.

After my classes were finished Mr. Kim, the Korean teachers and I went out for dinner. Afterwards, Mr. Kim had to go back to the school for the last class; Ginny, Balgun and I went for a drink at a new bar in the neighborhood: the Beer Gallery.

For a gallery the beers were not so numerous, but then this is Korea, the land of heavily-taxed imports providing beer consumers with a ubiquitously finite selection. The surprising thing was that after only two and a half beers, I was coaxed into visiting the norae bang downstairs. I'm not generally a fan of norae bangs (literally "song room" in Korean) because I don't really like to sing around other people unless I'm drunk and unguarded. I'm self-conscious about my terrible voice and envious of those who can actually carry a tune. It was a new norae bang, brilliant red walls, black and white checkerboard-tiled floor, and the establishment's name written in gold italicized script on the wall. The beautiful thing about norae bangs is that they are private rooms, where only those in your party are subjected to what you choose to sing, unlike karaoke in the US where one singer serenades the entire bar, for good or evil. I sang great songs like "We Didn't Start the Fire" and "Sweet Child O'Mine" and "99 Red Balloons." I even tried to rock out "U can't touch this" and failed miserably. After two hours of sweetly serenading the not-so-soundproof walls, Balgun gave me a ride close to downtown where I met up with Traci for the beer that would later provide me with a headache. I didn't mean to stay out till 5:30a, but it happens sometimes.