Friday, November 11th was Remembrance Day back home... but in Korea it was Pepero Day. Peperos are the long cookie like stick dipped in chocolate pictured here. On Pepero Day, one is to give peperos to the people you love. It is a huge commercial thing like Valentine's Day, every corner store and grocery store sell thousands of the cookies in all different sizes. You can get specialty ones from the bakeries as well.
Students and teachers are expected to exchange peperos as well and so as a result we ended up with piles of peperos from our kindergarten, elementary, and middle school children. At school, Scott made a rather humerous cultural error as he gave a box of peperos to his female co-teacher (blue teacher) out of politeness.... however, it gave his kindergarten students the wrong idea and they began chanting "Scott teacher love blue teacher... Scott teacher love blue teacher... he want to marry her".. they continued to chant it as Scott protested in English that no, it wasn't true, he loved Deborah teacher and he was married to Deborah teacher. Some of the students caught on.. but others continued their Scott teacher-blue teacher chant until the embarrassed blue teacher explained to them in Korean that Scott teacher was married to Deborah teacher. Oh the trials of Pepero day... I had no such problems, my co-teacher gave me peperos and no one thought anything of it... because we're both female.. it is quite another thing for a male teacher to give peperos to a female teacher.. so it was pretty funny.
They also celebrate Valentine's Day.. but it is only a day for Men to give chocolates and flowers and gifts to the women. They have a separate day for women to give gifts to men... it is called "White day". So, all in all, they have three "love" holidays.. kind of interesting.
So, that day went well. We are doing well in other parts of our lives as well, we bought a digital camera and have been taking pictures of the apartment and stuff, to show you all where we are living... we should have them posted soon.
Oh yeah, I have another nephew... Reuban Jonathan Dixon was born to my sister Sharalyn Dixon and her husband Jonathan Dixon... their third child after Caleb Andrew MacDonald Dixon and Kathryn Joy Dixon... we were very excited, his pictures look like he's quite the screamer... we can't wait to see all of our new nephews in person... unfortunately they'll be almost a year old before we get to hold them.
Congratulations guys!
In other news... very shortly, we're having quite a problem in our apartment with these little bitty brown bugs that are all over the counter and table and get into the cupboards.. they are attracted to bread products and so are always infesting our cereal etc... causing us to have to throw it out... they're driving me nuts! If anyone has any suggestions on how to rid ourselves of or improve this situation, we're open to them. The only thing I can think of now is to keep our cereal and bread in the refrigerator... but that might make it hard and stale. I spray with bug stuff like everyday and then wipe the bodies up with a cloth, but just hours later, the place is infested again... it's really gross!
Anyway, that's all for now, I guess I've started to ramble.
3 comments:
Hey Scott and Deborah,
Your "Pepero Day" post was very interesting and amusing!
As for your bug problem: I suggest emptying your cereal into sealable plastic containers. That should prevent the little critters from gaining access to your breakfast, and perhaps force them to seek nourishment in someone else's apartment!
OR....you could try covering your entire kitchen counter area with a thick layer of peanut butter, thus trapping the bugs as they attempt to raid your cereal.
OR....if the bugs do not fly, you could deter them by applying an aeresol-based cooking spray all over the lower parts of the kitchen counters thereby rendering ineffectual the insects' attempt at climbing up to your cereal.
OR.....you could construct hundreds of tiny mouse-trap-like devices; and using bits of cereal as bait you can kill each individual bug as it roams your apartment.
OR....you could contact your local botanist and find out what natural predators these insects have and introduce these new creatures into the apartment to hunt and kill the cereal-eaters.
Those are all of the suggestions I have right now, but if I think of any more I'll be sure to let you know.
-Andrew
Thanks Andrew.... we've already put the cereal in a plastic container... but they're still everywhere else... we'll have to give your other suggestions a try. I especially liked the peanut butter one. I've heard that they do have natural predators we could introduce... unfortunately they're an even grosser and poisonous type of bug... some kind of transparentish centipede... One of the girls at our church has them in her apartment.
-Deborah
Glad I could help!
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