a day of deeds

Hey, I know, no one likes a braggart. But yesterday I was feeling darn good and here are the reasons why:

1. A friend introduced me to a really nice sweet loving and poor family yesterday who desperately wants their little girl to learn English. In Korea, every kid who can afford it is enrolled in private institutes for English, Science, Chinese, Math, Japanese, Music... Sometimes one and sometimes all... Korean education is intensely competitive and in this system, only really rich kids can really afford to get a good education. So what about a smart poor smart kid? Out of luck. So how could I say no when my friend asked me take on this student for very little money? I assessed her level (can't even read) and went out to the most crowded bookstore on the entire planet and bought her some phonics books and an easy reader, and on Monday, we'll start learning. Oh, she is so sweet and earnest... If only all of my rich bratty students were like her...

2. After enduring world's most crowded bookstore, I went off to world's most crowded market to buy some gifts for the General Secretary's family. His daughter wanted a badminton set and his mom wanted a black purse. Yeah, I know, they are Muslim, they don't celebrate Christmas. But the post to Bangladesh is really unreliable and we have a mutual friend who is going there on Thursday, so the GS is sending packages with him. Why did I endure world's most crowded market? Well, the GS is too busy saving the world (or at least migrant workers in Korea) to do much of anything, so that pretty much leaves me to do things like shopping (ew yuck gross) and even, on occasion, laundry...

So then I rode the bus home from world's most crowded market. Thankfully, it wasn't the world's most crowded bus (it usually isn't to my neighborhood), but it was still full and this little old grandma gets on and all these damn bratty school kids who were riding WOULDN'T GET UP for her. I mean it's always a good idea to get up for old ladies with bent backs, but in Korea it is like, not an option. You must do it... But they didn't. So I did. And she was so freakin sweet to me about it. And impressed that I could understand that she was being sweet and chatted my ear off the whole way home about how rude kids are these days and that Korea is in a bad state when only foreigners are getting up on the bus for old folks.

So then I just felt like doing good deeds all day, but it was late and I was home and I ran out of things to do for people. So, I turned to the internet so I could talk about (what is actually very few) good deeds.

The End.
for now