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About 2 am soon e and i called it a day.
we both woke up around 7:00 this morning. i knew i hadn't had enough sleep but i also knew i wouldn't be able to get back to sleep.
soon e asked me what i'd like for "ah-chim" (breakfast). I said, "bbang?" pointing to the english muffins and she said "yes". i showed her how i open them with a fork and how i use the toaster oven to heat them. we had a little raspberry jelly and i got the new jar of strawberry. we sat down at the table and i made the first one for her. we went over a lot of words: raspberry, strawberry, spoon, chair, table. she also did the time with me.
at breakfast i showed her one of melissa's books. melissa had left a slap bracelet in it. i conveyed to soon e that it's called a slap bracelet and that it only costs $1. i told her that mimi and ashley each have 5 or 6. she said one was enough. i told her how they wanted a lot of barbies. she said one each was enough. i showed her how mimi and ashley put the barbies into families.
i asked her if she'd like to go shopping this morning. she indicated that i should work. i showed her the christmas list for mimi and ashley. she said they should each get just one thing. (i don't know how i'm going to handle that. she is really a quite thrifty person and i think that's good. but i also promised mimi and ashley quite a bit.)
i told her that mimi wanted her to make some "ot" (clothes) for the barbies. mimi had told me that soon e could sew.
after breakfast soon e asked me what i'd like for lunch. soon e, "pahb (rice)? kimchi?" i said yes. she asked what time. i said about 1:00 or 2:00.
i showed her a little of melissa's "new kids on the block" video tape. she told me that when ashley was 4 (i think that's korean for the American age of 3) that she would take a spoon and pretend it was a microphone. i told her about a tape with ashley pretending to have a microphone: singing and dancing. she wanted to see it.
after that, i put in the the next video tape of the girls in korea. this one showed kim hae-sook in the hotel room with ashley on her back, the last morning the girls were in korea, the flight to LA, and their first day at disneyland.
she only cried once during this tape. i went to the bathroom and got some toilet paper for her.
at one point she saw i was tired and made some "in-sam cha" (ginseng tea) for me.
as we went through some korean words, i told her that she was my "san-sang-nim" (teacher). she said "no" and indicated that she was a "pa-bo" (moron). i said "no". i found the word for student and indicated that i was the student. i told her she was intelligent like kyung in, hyun mee, and seung hee. and she definitely is.
we heard the 12:00 noon bell from the catholic church across the way. i told her it was a "shin-bu-nim" (catholic) church. i crossed myself. she crossed herself and said the words in korean. i told her about the korean church in andover. then i got my korean hymn book. she read "the Lord's Prayer" to me in korean.
when she finished reading she turned to a hymn and started singing. what a wonderful voice she has. she pitched the song perfectly for her voice and didn't falter at all. her tone is soft but very clear. i was overwhelmed. she sang a couple of other hymns for me. i kept saying how beautiful her singing was. she said that when kyung-in (melissa) comes, she can play the electric organ for her to sing. (i didn't have the heart to tell her that melissa had stopped piano lessons.) i'm looking forward to singing with soon e.
while we were waiting for the rice, we sat at the table and talked.
i asked her the name of the girls' father. she wrote it for me but indicated that i was their father now. i asked her about the im name. she wrote her mother's and father's names. i asked her if her father was alive. she indicated that he wasn't. i told her how old my mother is: 82. she said that her mother is 73. she told me she has 3 brothers and 2 sisters.
she wanted to know how old i was. i said 53. she wanted to know about chang, myong, and donna. then about nicolas (my grandson). i found a picture of my four kids from jack's wedding. i indicated that i have 3 sons and 4 daughters.
soon e was very hungry at lunch. at one point she said she was a "tweh-gee" (pig); like hyun-mee (mimi).
chang called during lunch and said everything went fine last night at his house. he said that he told soon e what a hard time i have working and keeping the girls every other day and how i was behind in my work and needed to catch up. he told me that while her first husband was a very good man he didn't work for the last five years of their marriage and she that had to support the family.
chang told me that she had let her second husband listen to one of the phone calls in which chang was telling her to carefully consider what she was doing and not to give up her marriage unless she was quite sure about things. soon e told him that her husband was very supportive of her. he knew she could never be completely happy, separated from the her daughters.
chang told me that he thought she would make the first move toward me at some point. chang, "she'll probably start leaving the door to her room open. then some night, she'll probably come into your bed." ed, "there's no hurry. i'm just glad to have her here."
soon e went into the girls' room for a nap at 2:00. i went into my room. i knew i wasn't going to be able to function tonight if i didn't get a little more sleep.
was awakened at 3:45 by UPS. stayed up though didn't feel too good. my mind wasn't clear enough to get any work done. finally ended up calling my daughter mari. gave her a complete rundown on what was happening. we talked for almost an hour.
soon e got up about 5:30. i think she was in a fog from the extreme time change. we sat on the couch and talked for quite a while. she was looking at some of the advanced lessons in one of the korean books. we went over several words. i told her the english for some of them. at one point we came across a term for korean greetings. she gave me three words: apparently for "good morning", "good afternoon", and "good evening". we started working on them. i drew her an hour chart showing when each was in effect. then i added "breakfast", "lunch", and "dinner". then we got into the distinction between "eat" and "drink". i made some sentences:
Good morning!
Please eat your breakfast!
Please eat your english muffin!
Please drink your milk!
Good afternoon!
Please eat your lunch!
Good evening!
Please eat your dinner!
she was really cute working on these. she had a really hard time with "breakfast" and "lunch". there's no "f" sound in korean. and there is a tendency for koreans to put a "ee" at the end of words like lunch.
later she had a good laugh at my expense when i was trying to say some korean words.
i asked her if she'd like to go to the "mee-guk ka-geh" (american store) or the "han-guk ka-geh" (korean store). she didn't seem to want to go until tomorrow. but then around 8:00 she suggested going to the mee-guk store because we're out of english muffins. we made a list. she needed vinegar. i suggested lettuce. she heartily agreed and said two. i told her the difference between ice cream and diet ice cream. "sol-tang ap-sa-yo" (no sugar). she decided that that sounded good. i also told her we needed tissues. i made the motion of tears coming out of my eyes and wiping them. i also suggested raspberry jelly because she seemed to like it when we had it before but we had finished off the jar.
the experience at market basket was incredible. it was the most fun i've ever had going grocery shopping. we pushed the cart together and got various things. she examined several things that she declined to get.
we got out of market basket about 9:00. i drove through downtown andover and took her by melissa's school. then i drove her to bancroft (ashley and mimi's school).
then we drove past donna's "chib" (house). she jokingly indicated she might jump out and knock on the door. we drove by and continued to the circle and then came back and stopped just past the house. i used "left" and "right" in korean to point out melissa's room and mimi and ashley's. (she has been working on "left" and "right".) she pretended that she was going to get out. i felt so badly for her knowing that her daughters, who she hadn't seen in 4 years, were just a few hundred feet away.
we came back to the condo. had rice, etc. for dinner and then ice cream. soon e had two helpings. i had asked her if she wanted more, but i couldn't get across the concept "more" so i got the package and brought it in.
after dinner we did a little more language study. at one point she was talking about the girls and donna's house. she show me a phrase for something like "mount a strike", jokingly indicating that she was going to go get the girls tomorrow. i showed her "jail". ed, "ap-pa, jail". then i drew picture of me in jail with soon e and the girls outside looking in at me. she was really laughing. she then indicated that the girls would be crying.
around 11:45, i started the fourth tape: a continuation of the girls at disneyland. soon e was sitting in the middle toward the left. i took the cushions off and sat next to her. our bodies were really jammed together but she didn't move over at all. that made me really happy.
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during the shots of mimi and ashley in the tub at disneyland, i asked her if they had a tub in their house when the girls lived there. she said there were only one room and a kitchen.
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we finally went to bed about 1:30: she to her room and i to mine.
this was the happiest day of my life!!! |
