i got back from hawaii late thursday night, may 18th, and i had to teach the next morning. then unfortunately instead of having the weekend to relax, i had to work both saturday and sunday. it was the school's annual sports day (in korean, 운�회), saturday was the practice and sunday was the real thing. the reason it was held on sunday was so that the kids' fathers could attend, since many of them work saturdays.

the festivities started at 9:00a, and lots of families were arrived and setting up camp in shady spots by the time i got there around 8:30a.

after all the students ceremoniously marched onto the field, there was a brief introduction followed by the start of the races. the school was broken into two teams, the white team and the blue team, and all my students were constantly asking me which team i was on. my responsibilities included posting the scores, so i couldn't allow my allegiences to sway either way.

yes, her name is hamster. she loves in english and always want to tell me whatever's on her mind. it was fun seeing all my students outside the classroom, i was surprised by how althletic and competitive some of them were.

christina surprised me by how competitive she was. she won her two individual races easily. later when she was the last leg of a relay, her team was way down and although she did her best they couldn't win. well, after that she was really upset and cried for a while. can't win 'em all, christina.

right as the students finished there were teachers waiting to stamp on their arms if they were first, second, or third. then sixth graders would take them to a line where they'd have to sit down. look at the contrast in size in that picture, i think that's actually one of the tallest sixth graders, and i know that 혜림 (hyerim) is the smallest student in the school. she's half her size!

i asked 호정 (hojung), one of the korean english teachers, and she explained to who they were. i guess at these kinds of functions the parents either don't want to follow the kids around all day, and also might not have really good cameras, so they hire these guys to take their kids' pictures all day. i guess these guys find out when it is and they just show up in the morning and then the parents make a deal with them. i could see that they had lists of about eight or ten students names on them, and would scurry around to get shots of them in action. hojung said even when she was little they did it as well.

it was confusing as anything because the white team is actually the team with the blue background and the white writing. i don't even remember who ended up winning, but the scores were over five hundred and it was only a difference of five points!

this was a riot, we were standing at the finish line giving out cookies to the kids, but half of them ran right by us thinking the race went on further. it's not every day you have to chase down a little kid when you've got cookies to give them.

after the races, there were various games played by individual classes. the first graders played a really neat game where all they had to do was throw as many bean bags into a bucket as they could.

next up was the father relay race. these guys were trying very hard, i was worried some of them might have a heart attack or something. the mothers and children cheered them on enthusiastically, and there was even some added excitement because one of the first racers is actually a korean celebrity. one of my first grade students' fathers is an actor in films and television, so lots of people were getting his picture all day (he's the guy on the right in blue).

after a spirited race by the fathers, there were relay races for the kids as well.

later there was a dance that all the first graders and their mothers participated in. i took pictures of one of the third grade teachers and her daughter because he husband couldn't make it.

the next event really scared me, a race between grandparents! first of all, i was just really afraid that someone might not live through the race. my second thought was just that you would never see that in america, calling all the grandparents especially out for a race.

for some reason in korea, whenever people are engaged in manual labor they wear these gloves with red paint painted on the palms. i'm not sure why, but you see it everywhere.

the sports day was a long, hot day in the sun, and after it was finished all i wanted to do was go home and sleep. but we had a teachers dinner afterwards. the food was delicious, 삼겹실 (sam gyeop sal, barbecued pork).

i didn't end up making it home until like 2:00a, but luckily they gave us monday off for having worked saturday and sunday.