My playlist apparently dictates my morning.

On my way out of the house today, I put on my "Super Happy Fun Playlist".
I was immediately greeted by a 65 or 70 year-old Korean woman and her grandson. She did not scream "White devil!", but instead said "Hello!" in a sing-song voice and then held up her grandson and waved his hand at me. Pretty sweet.
Old people are generally pretty nice here. They have a lot of good feeling towards Americans ever since the filming of M*A*S*H, which really promoted Korean cultural awareness all over the world.
Then, when I arrived at school, I was greeted in the office by a lot of smiles and hello, which I returned with "Anyong Haseyo"s. I actually felt really welcomed at work. And students stopped to talk to me in the hall, which was nothing new, but I can tell that my little speech entitled "You can say things other than "I am fine" when someone asks how you are doing, for God's sake!" is sinking in. Now they all say "I am good, thank you, how are you?".
Well, except for the kid who invited me to his party, he still gets involved in the classic infinite regress which I love to exploit for my own amusement. It goes a little like this:

"Hello teacher, how are you today?"
"I'm pretty good, how are you?"
"I am fine, thank you, how are you?"
"Good, thanks, how are you?" (At this point I realize what will happen, and ask again)
"I am fine, thank you, how are you?"
"... Umm, good... thanks. How are you?" (Realizing he has no idea what is happening, I ask again)
"I am fine, thank you, how are you?"
"I like this game, how are you?" (He does not catch the first part)
"I am fine thank you, how are you?"
... and so on, until either I walk away, or smoke begins to billow from his ears, like the Fembots on Star Trek when Kirk, Scotty, and McCoy started acting absurdly and asking logic problems.

Basically, trying to have a conversation with a student is like trying to talk to a DOS prompt. Unless you speak using a very specific vocabulary of commands, you are simply told "Invalid command or file name". And when you ask DOS how it is doing, it always responds the same way.

"I'm fine thanks, how are you"

That's all for now.