An Unexpected Meeting.

Dear friends,

Do you remember the first week I was here (dear friends: has it really only been three weeks)?* I wrote a blog about how some unpleasant things are the same everywhere and some pleasant things are the same everywhere. In the blog, I mentioned going to a grocery store and meeting two little girls with mice who proceeded to follow me around the entire store, and left me with bountiful hugs when I finally had to go. Well, today I went back to the store for the first time in months, and I ran into one of the girls again!

Here's how it went down: I went into the store with Nikie, my roommate, and Heesung, our Korean buddy. Nikie and Heesung went to buy groceries for Nikie, and I went to buy markers to color with--aside note: And did I ever color! Tonight I made a "friends poster" for me and the security guard, an old man named Mr. Lee who won my heart week number one when he gave me a can of pineapple juice and shared my secret stash of jelly beans-- Since I only bought one thing, I checked out much earlier than Nikie and Heesung I sat down to wait for them, and began drawing pictures with my markers and playing "Where's the Baby" with a a laughing baby. A group of kids came over and we had a brief conversation in limited English and Korean.

They left me with a, "Good-bye, Renee Teacher," and I went back to coloring. A few minutes later I heard a happy gasp, as the kids came back with my friend from week one. She ran over and hugged me and showed me her mouse, now grown much bigger (A note: As far as I can tell, this girl's mother works at the store and so the girl spends a lot of time at there). Anyway, we reacquainted ourselves in much the same way, with smiles and giggles, limited communication and exaggerated facial expressions. We also drew pictures on a pad of sticky notes, and she wrote "Sah Rang Heh Yo," which means, "I love you," on her hands. Heesung snapped a picture of us and we left.

I know I say this quite a bit but:
It was the best day ever.

*I'm not quite sure if I punctuated this sentence correctly. I've always had some problems with parentheses. Grammar nerds, can you tell me where the punctuation is supposed to go when using parentheses? Neil, Carrie Jones, or Kathy Rice, I have a feeling one of you might know.