Teachers' Day

Yesterday was Teachers' Day, and I was glad that they have a day to honor those of us who work our asses off to help kids learn. I was told that children give their teachers gifts; one of my students mentioned that they give carnations to teachers.

Since I don't really like flowers, and a chocolate bar costs the same amount, my friend from the air force gave me the idea to put up a little sign in my classroom last week with a picture of a flower with the red circle and bar through it and a picture of a chocolate bar with a thumbs up next to it, and refuse to comment on it. So I did, and some of the kids even figured it out. They all thought the sign was very peculiar and they studied it a lot. Now that I think of it, I should have taken a picture.

Considering the amount of teachers Korean students have, I expected a lot of kids to give me a flower or maybe a card or some little trinket. I was wrong, though. It seems to be more of big deal than I thought, and most of the kids seem to choose which teachers they want to give presents to, and give them pretty good presents, instead of small ones to all of them. I got thirteen presents, with one more on the way. One of my students says "It's not ready yet."


Here is a picture of the full spread:


And a little more detail:



From left to right, generally: bergamot body wash from The Body Shop, an embroidered handkerchief with hand mirror from renoma Paris, a mini rouge compact from Anna Sui (it's not in the detail picture, but I remembered to include it in the wider shot), body lotion from Anna Sui, a "diamond" hair clip from Ssilbaereudae Paris (it's in Korean, so I don't know what the English translation is), a basket of assorted French cookies and cakes (the picture shows only half of what it had originally), orange and aloe-flavored chocolates from Jeju Island in Korea, a decorative box, a floral handbag, a bar of milk chocolate, and handmade soaps in aloe, grape, and black sugar flavors. Plus the massive basket of carnations.

I think the box is my favorite. I love containers. Like I said, I don't really like flowers, but I was rather impressed by the basket of carnations. It was quite thoughtful, as were all the gifts.

All this stuff, especially considering that a fair amount of it is European or American, and how nice the Asian stuff is, is easily worth over $100, probably closer to $150. Holy schnikes.




Here are close-ups of some of the more decorative stuff: