The name of my hogwan is Letter and Sound Academy, so named for the Letterland curriculum that is used here. For each letter of the alphabet there is a character so the letter "d" is for Dippy Duck and each class is named for one of the characters. Lina is one of my four-year-old kindergarten students in the Dippy Duck class. When I first met Lina, she was slow to smile and quick to cry, for seemingly no reason. Knowing that she is a child, I knew it was not because she didn't like me. During my first week teaching that class, I was reading them" Chicka Chicka Boom Boom," a book about the alphabet, when she decided to get her pink toy Hello Kitty mobile phone and start playing with it as I read. I made the mistake of being the disciplinarian and took it away from her, which pissed her off a great deal. She began to wail and looked so angry with me that I immediately gave it back to her. She sat there and listened to the rest of the book, just holding the phone in her hand, its red lights flickering on and off. She is just a child after all, and just needed to feel secure, so I let her keep it. This daily crying continued until just two days ago, when her demeanor began to change. Yesterday, while I washed my hands in the bathroom after I taught her class, she walked to the door, looked at me and in her sweet little voice, waved and said, "Good-bye," before running away, barefoot and giggling. She no longer runs away from me when I try to talk to her--she feels comfortable with me, and that feels good. It was also yesterday that I sang a very silly rendition of "Old MacDonald Had a Farm," with the most obnoxious animal sounds I could muster, to the complete and utter delight of the children. I know it sounds like a cliche, and perhaps it is, but there is really no sweeter sound than that of children laughing. I sang the song to teach the children about animals and the sounds they make, but I did it mostly for Lina's benefit, whose face broke into a huge smile as I mooed and quacked and oinked. During class today she actually let me tickle her and goof off with her, and she actually enjoyed it and wanted more.