My Friday was spent preparing for very unprepared last minute Thanksgiving Day festivities for the Kindergarten students, including a badly done skit where one pilgrim falls down dead and the Indian saves the day.

Our one-week-too-early-but Koreans don’t care because birthday party is scheduled for next Friday-Thanksgiving Day Celebration was followed by the third annual Golden Bell competition for the afternoon elementary school students.

They have had over 6 weeks to study questions from “What city in Korea doesn’t have a subway?” to “What am I? – I’m becoming a museum item, I’m being replaced by computers, I’m happy when a pretty girl puts her fingers on me.” Yep, you guessed it! A typewriter, or as one student wrote, a “time whitr.” (Same student, for the answer of “Italy,” wrote “Italaroueau”)

I was very surprised by the number of tears had by good students upon losing, who just can’t handle being the “runner up.” My favorite was the last minute upset, when the oldest girl, Jenny, lost to a boy two years younger than her and refused to be in the “top 7 winners” photo because she was too busy having a temper tantrum and blaming her loss on the teachers rather than owning up to the fact that she second guessed herself. I won a chunner off of that, congrats Jay.

All’s fair in love and Golden Bell.