New bike, Mormonism & George

George

I've been busy this week and I can't believe it's already the weekend (after 5 hours of teaching today). Last Sunday night I bought a bike (yippee!!!) and I've been enjoying riding all over Anyang on it since. I've decided that listening to the iPod, answering the phone and riding the bike is a bad idea. This is when multitasking turns deadly. Luckily, for the sake of my life (but not at all good on any other aspect) my iPod decided to die yesterday. All I see is a file with an exclamation mark when I try to turn it on. I'm so sad, I can't begin to explain how much that sucks. Oh well, that's life. Hopefully I can get it fixed at the COEX iPod store. On a positive note, my phone now works after nearly a month with the speaker being broken. I couldn't hear anyone but they could hear me. It led to some interesting one-sided conversations and I am very grateful to have my speaker capabilities back. (So, I don't even know if you answered your phone or not, but if so, this is Aly and I can't hear you...)

Last night I invited my cousin Jamie (Elder Patel) and his companion, Elder Zabriski over for dinner. They're not allowed to be in the same room alone with a female so I also invited my co-worker Jamie to join us. I made curry and we sat around and chatted about the family back home for awhile and then after dinner the conversation turned to religion (as of course it would with missionaries). While I have respect for my cousin and believe he truly believes what he is doing is right, I think Mormonism is about on par with Scientology as far as whacked out religions go. (Speaking of Scientology, check out the recent South Park episode about Scientology and Tom Cruise, 'Trapped in the Closet'. Funny stuff.) I personally don't think Mormonism is much crazier than other religions, it's just a relatively new religion and therefore easier to question it's authenticity. (I could go on for hours with questions relating to that but don't worry, I won't.) I don't respect or appreciate the ban on information (books and media deemed inappropriate, which the Church says are "evil", but in reality are conflicting to the teachings) for the members of the Church of Latter day Saints. But, while I personally think it's insane, millions of others disagree. Last night I had a dream I was stuck in a world full of Mormons, it was the worst nightmare I've had in awhile. I woke up at 4:30 am and couldn't fall back asleep for an hour.

Enough religion for one post. The picture above is of George, a kid that transferred to my class last week. He is disgusting! He is the only student I have that constantly repulses me in so many ways. Where to start...? First, his fingers are always in his nose. Sometimes he eats what he finds, other times he decides to wipe it on the clothes of another student. I give him a tissue and force him to use it and then he eats it. Yes, he eats the snot-filled tissue. He eats anything, including but not limited to: the plastic part on his colored pencils, his glasses, the stickers I give him, paper cups, random items found on the floor, balloons, coloring paper. I give him candy and he throws the candy away in favor of eating the wrapper. The other day he was chewing on a deflated balloon (the Korean teachers wouldn't let me take it away). Every couple minutes it would fall on to the floor and he would pick it right back up and continue chewing on it. He let a couple other students have a chew and then every once in awhile he would take it out of his mouth and wring the saliva out into a puddle on the floor. A couple days ago he called me over to him with the sole purpose of having me watch him blow a huge blob of green snot out of his nose and then let it slide down to his mouth. And he did it with a smile. Ewww...and with those thoughts fresh in my head, it's time to eat breakfast.

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By request, here's a link to the South Park episode, "All About Mormons"