i am now a korean toddler. my big verbs (as opposed to 'to sleep', 'to eat', etc) are a few different versions 'there is/is there', 'to want', 'to be', etc. this week i cemented my toddler status as i learned how to ask 'what is this?' and 'what is that?'. luckily, like a toddler, i am cute, so when i ask people these questions over and over (and even worse, when i tell people things they already know like 'that is a spoon') they smile and tell me. but i am also a 30 year old man, with a literary/tragi-comic bend so i try to make jokes. last night i made a joke that seems to be successful. i think other professions would have more wonder as to the source of the laughter. did they laugh because it was entertaining to see a foreigner fumble through a joke in korean? did they laugh to be polite? did they laugh because they didn't even understand what i said? so many questions. thankfully, these are things that with koreans i do not think about. this may explain some of my happiness here.