김민서

김민서
Kim-Min-Seo



A Kinder class student. A slow eater. A hitter. A funny face maker. A gernous mom haver. A English learner. A well-dresser. A screamer. A funny story maker. A "a is apple" repeater. A character!

I am the proud co-teacher of four wonderful kinder students this new semester and thought I'd take some time to introduce you to the four little people I get to spend the majority of my day with.

And first up is Min-Seo. She's one of the only students of which I know a last name (which in Korean comes first) as I often hear my co-teacher Grace saying it and I have started to as well. I wish I could record a video of Grace and I saying "Kim Min-SA" to adequately show the way we have learned to say this name with as much "obey me now" inflection as possible. To be honest, I don't think it ever works :).


Her English name is Eileen, which is pronounced A-lean. Needless, to say I don't like it nor does my co-teacher so we seldom use it! I wanted desperately to name her Kara (as my co-teacher named another kid in our class after her and I thought it would be fair: I got vetoed).

My favorite time (right now) with Minseo is at lunch time. I remember every summer praying for patience and I think God's really started to answer that request with Minseo! She is a slow eater and takes nearly double the time the rest of the class does. Her old home room teacher used to feed her but thankfully my co-teacher and I are both firm believers that in 6 years or kinder class these kids need to learn to do it themselves! (though Grace will shove a spoonful or two in every once in a while)

A funny story: One day at lunch I had the other three kids eating super fast by judging all of their bites as tiny, little, big, or huge. The kids thought it was hilarious to show me a huge bite and hear me say in a great voice: "OH THAT IS SOOOOO HUGE!" And occasionally they'd laugh really hard when I pretended to be so sad that their bites were tiny!

Minseo was playing the game but it definitely was just succeeding in making her eat slower as she'd make a huge bite, which would fall off her spoon before she could get it in her mouth so then she'd do the whole process (showing me too) all over again. She also thoroughly enjoyed showing me tiny and little bites!

Randomly, Minseo looked at me and said, "Kara angry?" To which I laughed, fake sniffed, and said "No, I am sad because Minseo is not eating." My co-teacher translated that into Korean so that Minseo would understand and then Minseo turned and stared at me with this I'm-not-so-sure-if-you're-lying-or-not-face-but-if-you're-not-I-should-do-something-to-help. She must have decided I wasn't lying (the whole time she stared, I fake cried) because she looked at me, looked at her spoon, looked at me, picked up her spoon, looked at me, got some rice, looked at me, smiled and shoved that rice in her mouth. I sniffed and then said "no that was a tiny bite." So Minseo rushed to grab another tiny spoonful and shove it in her mouth, then looked at me, heard me sniff again, grabbed another huge bite and shoved it in her mouth, and looked at me, and smiled so big when I smiled big and said, "I am so happy." After that any time I sniffed Minseo would shove food in her mouth as quick as she could!

I'm proud to say, Minseo finished her lunch first today and that the fake crying thing is still working and working even better now!

I'm sure to introduce you to a million more Minseo's stories as time goes on. In fact, it was super hard to stop with just one. But let me just say I love this girl. Yes, there are days when I'm frustrated, angry, tired with her but at the end of the day she looks up at me and smiles and it's impossible to not love that little face. Or when she sees me in the morning and yells, "KARA!" in her little screeching voice. Or when she kisses my cheek randomly during the day. Or even when she's telling me "no" for the fifth time when she should be saying "yes, mam!"

I love Kim Min-Seo!.

Reason #1, You're DYING to visit Korea.

So someone recently asked me what I loved about Korea (perhaps in response to a bit of a rant I had gone on about all my dislikes) and it got me to thinking about how AWESOME certain things here are. So I thought I'd share them with you, honestly, in hopes of enticing you to visit me here...as I really, really, really want a visitor (hint, hint).

So Reason #1 you should come visit me in Korea (or just come to Korea sometime):

That's right the headbands in Korea are AMAZING! I mean seriously Korean girls understand the idea of bedazzling one's hair. You can get simple headbands that are one color, headbands with little bows attached, headbands with extra sparkles, headbands with crocheted flowers, headbands with polka-dots, headbands with butterflies, headbands with textured cloth, headbands with beads, and probably a million more that I haven't seen yet but will be excited to see one day soon!

And just to show how amazing these headbands are for you doubters I shall quote Pamela Parry (a recent headband hater turned convert), "I do want more now!"

AND BEYOND HEADBANDS, Korea has barrettes galore, hairbands with all sorts of embellishments, chopsticks with beautiful doohickeys on tops (but to be honest I can barely eat with chopsticks so wearing them in my hair is just too hard!), butterfly clips of all shapes and sizes, and probably a million more hair accessories that I'm too American to understand.

And where can you get these things you ask? Well you can get them in most any subway stations, a variety of streets (especially in Apgujeong), Myeong-dong, any of the numerous malls, my bedroom mirror (yes that's right if you visit, I'd let you borrow one of my own collection), OR you could go to Dongdaemun

Perhaps, I should have named this reason #2 or used it instead as #1 and just highlighted the headbands throughout. But this place is sensational. It's I believe two buildings with floor after floor of goods: clothes, jewelry, food, purses, hair accessories, shoes, fabric, and probably a million more things I didn't even notice because I was in sensory overload!

You can go through these vendors and find anything you're little heart desires. And after this post you'll probably be dreaming of headbands. And you can find these things at all hours of the day and night as this place is open to the wee hours of the morning. And you can earn yourself some deals as you can haggle over any prices presented to you and get them for even better!

Dying to come to Korea yet?