Busy Week

It turned out to be another very busy week. On Thursday, T taught my preschool classes so that I could attend Chloe's middle school graduation. What an honor to see her reach this milestone in her life. Since Joy and another friend of theirs were taking pictures, I didn't take any. Joy hasn't emailed her pictures yet, so I'll have to post them later.

On Saturday I attended E and L's end-of-the-school-year performance. The three-hour performance included songs and skits in Korean, English, and Chinese, drum and xylophone performances, and taekwondo and tumbling demonstrations. The kids did a super job, but it sure seemed like overkill for these 3- to 6-year-olds. Because of the dim lighting and the limitations of my little point-and-shoot camera, my photos of the event didn't turn out too well, but this one of E is my favorite, a little girl in a blur of motion:Today I took E ice skating. We had been skating once before. She loved it, and I told her then that we'd go again someday. Days get busy, though, and almost 10 months have gone by, so on Sunday, the two of us headed off to the rink. H-k was with us the last time we went, so she bought the tickets and did all the talking. This time, the responsibility was on me. I didn't think it would be a problem negotiating admission and skate rentals, but since the last time we were there, the ice rink installed automatic ticket machines in place of the helpful people in the ticket booth. There's a pretty good chance that people in a ticket booth speak a little bit of English or might understand my little bit of Korean. An automatic ticket machine, on the other hand, isn't quite so flexible. It stretched my Korean to its limits, but I was able to purchase the right tickets for admission and skate rental for one adult and one child. I consider it a success.

Little E did a fantastic job on the ice. This was only her second time skating. She went from depending entirely on me to keep her balance and support her weight to inching along the wall to skating holding my hand to even venturing a few feet on her own. H-k and I had thought that 1 or 2 hours would be plenty of time on the ice, but at the 2 hour mark, E was still having a blast and wanting to stay, so we called H-k to check in and skated for another hour. When we took a break at the end of the third hour, E was adamant that she wanted to skate some more. In the very same breath, she started to doze off on the bleachers, still wearing her gloves and skates. I told her I thought it was time to go home and see what her parents and sister were up to.

"No," she said, "one more time ice skating."

"Not today," I said. "I'm sleepy, too."

"I'm not sleepy," she said with a yawn. "I'm happy."

"I'm happy, too," I replied as I helped her take her skates off. I promised her we'd go again, without quite so much time between outings.

We walked hand-in-hand back to the locker room, returned our rental skates and helmets, retrieved our backpacks, and caught a cab back to her apartment. I hadn't even finished telling the taxi driver where to go when she fell sound asleep. When we arrived at her apartment building, I had to carry my sound-asleep 5-year-old ice-skating friend inside.

It was a special afternoon, but I'm really feeling the strain this evening--not your typical ice-skating strain, which is usually in the ankles and legs, but a strain that's new to me, that of teaching a 5-year-old to skate. It's all in my back, shoulders, and arms. It's the strain of not being concerned so much for my own weight and balance as hers. I don't like the feeling--it hurts--but on the other hand, I don't mind it quite so much. However, now that she has a feel for her feet on the ice, I'm going to let her do more of the work next time.