Jumping for Joy

For a Saturday night mini-date, Shane and I walked the fifteen minutes up the Oncheonjang trail to Dongnae-gu for a bite to eat. We stopped into The Frypan, a franchise restaurant serving up fried chicken tenders, homemade chips, and beer. 


The food was tasty, but even more satisfying was bumping into one of my kindergarten students, who herself was with her father, on their way for some dinner of their own. As soon as Sarah saw me, she began ceaselessly jumping up and down, her arms flailing at her sides, yelling "TEACHER! TEACHER! TEACHER! TEACHER!". When I finally got her to stop dancing, and asked her where she was going, she babbled in English, pointed up then down the street, made some strange squeaking noises, and then started jumping gleefully all over again yelling "TEACHER! TEACHER!". 


Earlier in the night, I had been stuck in my own head, overanalyzing everything like my usual self, and feeling rather overwhelmed. But this unplanned moment cut through all of it. She was so happy to see me, and simple as that, I remembered why I love my life so much.