childhood crushes

There was a blonde girl in kindergarten that I seem to remember walking halfway home with and giving all my cinnamon hearts to on Valentine's day. I can't for the life of me remember her name, though.

Why am I thinking about this? Last Tuesday was White Day, a holiday here in South Korea when boys (and men) are supposed to give candy to the gals that gave them chocolate on Valentine's day. Ella got a big candy heart lollipop from a boy at daycare but she was asking about her old boyfriend, Ahn Si-Yong, who she knew from her old daycare. So yesterday we went to visit her old daycare and there was Ahn Si-Yong, tubby as ever and acting shy. I think Ella likes him because he reminds her of Winnie-the-Pooh, but I haven't asked. I like him because whenever he saw me leaving for work in the evening as he was headed home with his mother, he always asked "Where's Ella?".

Now, having talked about that what I want to mention is this: there was a girl in grade one whose name I do remember.

I remember it so well that when I was in grade three and my teacher began to introduce a girl who would be joining our class I got all excited in a seven-year old kind of way (I skipped grade two) because her name was Nina. That turned out to be a different Nina. But I still remember her name and yesterday I did a search. Here is the original Nina, still as cute as ever. Click on the photo to see what she's been up to.