Yes, I'll be selling copies of Scary Spasms in Hairy Chasms* for a reduced price of W10,000, which is roughly 33% off the cover price ($15.00, US). Buy two and I'll charge you only W8000 per book. Proceeds from the book do not go to me: I'm doing this to help out the students. I definitely won't be offering the book to Smoo faculty or my supervisors; copies of the book will be stored in my backpack and kept quietly under the table. You'll have to ask me directly.
So if you come to the bazaar to see what's up with the students and perhaps to buy yourself a copy of my "paeans to putrescence," please do me a favor and don't boom out that I HEARD ABOUT KEVIN'S FILTHY BOOK FROM HIS FILTHIER BLOG! While my coworkers are aware of my blog's existence, my students remain blissfully ignorant. They routinely ask me whether I have a CyWorld homepage, and I truthfully answer "No." I simply don't elaborate further, and my "no" has been sufficient for over a year. Let's keep it that way, shall we?
A warning: at least three out of four (or five?) groups of students will be doing something manicure-related. If you're a guy, prepare for a rather... estrogen-drenched ambience.
Another reason I'm offering my book for sale is that we've now lost the water balloon competition as an activity. Our iced tea might also have been replaced by something else. If this goes like the last bazaar, the bulk of the cash will be made by yours truly, selling brush art (I've got about 20 cool pieces, some of which I actually would rather not part with, including a simple-but-imposing brush art Batman silhouette). I sold my art last time for an average of W3000 per piece, and got rid of 11 out of 15 pieces, earning our group around W35,000. Our total earnings during the winter bazaar were around W55,000, so you see how that worked out. I'm not mentioning this out of pride; I have no illusions about how good an artist I am. But despite my general lack of business sense, I do know that the market will bear a lot, and people will often be more attracted to your wares if you're not too modest about prices. My students, to whom I gave some leeway in setting prices, were often a bit timid and set prices too low.
If you're planning to hit the bazaar, please bring some friends. The purpose of the bazaar is to give students a chance to speak in English in somewhat fluid and unpredictable circumstances; most of the dialogue will be transactional in nature, but I hope that some of you will hang around and just talk with the ladies. That goes double if they think you're good-looking: they'll be far more motivated to use their English if you look like Daniel Henney's twin.
I'm teaching the advanced-level students this time around; most of them are planning to go out after the bazaar to get smashed. Your money will fund their inebriation, so you can rest assured that it's all for a worthy cause. I don't drink, so I'm planning on doing an alcohol-free dinner with them, then leaving my charges in the hands of Charles Darwin and Thomas Hobbes. Here's hoping they survive the weekend; they've got a midterm in my class on Monday.
Hope to see you in the midst of the madness later today!
*Book excerpt and Amazon.com entry are linked on the sidebar.
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