I’ve found a new webpage that’s always good for a laugh…especially for anyone who’s lived in Asia. It’s http://www.engrish.com …it’s a lot of pictures of humourous misuses of the English Language. Most of them are from Japan – but you’re just as likely to see similar errors in China or Korea.

In pottery today I made a mug! After months of nameless shapes, I’ve finally made something I recognize!!! Hooray!!! I’m not saying the other stuff isn’t pretty, or doesn’t serve a function – I’m just saying I’m not 100% sure what they are. But today…oh yes, today. The breakthrough. The crowning achievement. The mug. There was some concern though – it spent part of the afternoon looking remarkably like a bowl. A little more squishing and pinching helped, but it was really the addition of the handle that helped define it’s role in this world. (Let’s hope it makes its way out of the kiln safely)…..

My friend Ken has a new job at a ‘pissbong’ … translated as PS (Playstation) Bong (room). We go to visit him every so often….and wind up staying for an hour or two or three as we try to improve our gaming skills. I’m still at the ‘you suck’ level, but hope to work my way up to ‘hopeless cause’ by the end of the month.

My favourite innocent cusser is moving to Seoul next week, so I won’t have him in my classes anymore. Sad. His lisp, combined with his accent made me smile. Every Monday, in respose to my query “What did you do this weekend?” he replies “I played f**ker wif my friends” when really, he means soccer.

Speaking of innocent cussers, I taught my l’il kids the song “Shoo Fly, don’t bother me” … and some of my really wee ones have trouble pronouncing lots of syllables at once. So their adorable rendition came out sounding like “Shoo Fly, don’t f**k with me”. Which, considering the size of the local insect population, I think a harder line with the buzzers might just be in order!

We took the kindegarten class to pottery this week. Those kids are so funny. One little guy (with a mullet) armed himself with a wad of clay, a wet sponge, a pointy stick and was trying his darndest to pound, gouge and slap a lion sculpture out of the whole mess. I can’t say he was succesful, but he had fun trying.