Picture Update

Susan and me at Nareh-bong (the Korean word for karaoke. If you use the word "karaoke" here, they'll take you to a place where you sing and get a hooker.

Susan and Monica are two of our students. Their mom is the Art teacher at school and she wanted us to hang out with them. Mrs. Park took us shopping, bought us lots of food, and paid for us to have some fun! Plus, she drives the nicest car in Gwangju so just riding in that was nice! A BMW SUV...

We ate at the best restaurant in town! This was REAL Italian. Wonderful! You don't have to tip anyone in Korea...waitresses, taxi drivers, the ppl who pump your gas. That's nice. They literally think you are stupid if you try to tip. ...so a nice restaurant like this was pretty reasonable.

At some national park in Seoul... we couldn't read all the signs, so we had no idea what this use to be. It was pouring down rain....had to buy an umbrella off the street.

We walked into an art gallery. Korean art materials = face masks. You can share this mask with one other person you know isn't sick!

You can share this face mask with all your coworkers...while you're on a merry go round.

An old temple in the middle of Seoul...

Laura and Ally who we met up with in Seoul.

We brought the TORCH along...hopefully we'll be published!

In the movie theater, letting our socks dry. You have assigned seats...

City girls: Conquering public transportation.

Walking in Incheon where Laura and Ally live...soooo pretty!

You have to taste this to believe that it is the best dessert ever! Chocolate Chex cereal, shaved ice, hot cocoa mix, condensed milk, marshmallows, and whip cream. "Chocopinsu"

Karrik and Charles getting punished by Mr. Ted. One time, Mr. Kim picked Karrik up by his head, just his head. His feet were dangling 3 feet in the air...

James is in the background. He does sign language for everything. Every word is "hmm" and he points and mimes. "Teacher: hmmm and hmmm to hmmm." Justin is the one up front. He has the best giggle and is always doing the right thing. I love Justin. That is Karrik's hand. This is an example of Karrik not doing the right thing.

This is Celeste. When she found out she was moving away from Canada to Korea last February, she gave away all her Chuck E Cheese tokens. She said " I didn't need them anymore so I gave them away." How mature is that? I really like her. Sometimes, we'll eat dinner together at school and Principal An will walk in and give a long, upset speach to the highschoolers. She'll translate everything to me. It's very cute. She's my tiny interpreter. "That last part doesn't apply to you unless you need to get toilet paper out of the boy's bathroom."

Joshua and I made it on TV! This is a shot from the computer. It was from the night we went to that blind clarinet player's concert. I didn't say anything (because they didn't want me to say anything) but Josh pretended to like clarinets for a second and stole my line about Beethoven being blind...while I just looked pretty.

The good kids choosing prizes...Karrik is just watching. I taught them all how to play Mother May I. It's really cute. I had to teach them what "tip toe", "frog leap", "bunny hop" "side step", etc. all meant. It actually is the perfect inside game because they talk the whole time.

 

Women Wednesdays

Kimber and I have been feeling like bums lately because all we do is eat, sleep, and work. On a regular day, I sit down at my desk at school at 8:00am and don’t get home until 7:00pm….and by then all I want to do is take a shower and get in bed. We aren’t taking advantage of our youth or our city.

Last Wednesday we had eaten a horrible lunch. We were starving at 4:00pm and were seriously craving Italian. So, we decided to escape school early and walk to Mr. Pizza to get some Korean “Italian”. It was worth the walk…

 That’s when it all started.

 We decided that everyone Wednesday from then on will be dedicated to doing what we, as grown women, with jobs, who live in a city, want to do. (Most of the time that means we go eat somewhere NOT Korean, but still.. it could get more exciting in the future!)

Tomorrow is Wednesday. On our walk back to school last Wednesday, we decided what we are going to do: Holly’s Coffee and a deli sandwich.

I can’t wait! I miss sandwiches!

This weekend, we indulged in womanly things and went up to Seoul and Incheon to visit Laura nd Ally who went to Lee with us. I had never met them but Kimber knew them. It was so refreshing to hang out with other girls who spoke English and who were living a common life. They teach in Incheon (which is an hour out of Seoul) at a Hagwon. They work 1pm-9pm at a tutoring center. They have the cutest apartment and live in a very nice town. I was kinda jealous until they spilled horror stories about the place they work at. Then, I realized how lucky I am to be at this school. (I also realized that not planning and being unorganized is a Korean fault, not a GVCS fault.) It was a great weekend. It poured on us while we were site-seeing on Saturday so we went to the movie theater and saw “Time Traveler’s Wife”. We drank lots of coffee, watch movies at their apartment, and had some amazing food! The only thing is, I left my deodorant there and now I can’t find any to buy. I haven’t been to the big stores because I can’t drive and Kim works late, so I’m kinda in a pickle. Not a good week to lose my deo, though….

This week is parent-teacher conferences. I was pretty nervous because 1. I’ve never been the “real” teacher in a parent-teacher conference, and 2. They gave us like 2 minutes notice: ” We are having ‘PTA’ this week. Sarah’s mom is here. Can you go have a meeting with her?” They call it PTA but I’m pretty sure they have nothing to do with the Parent Teacher Association..or even know what the ‘A’ stands for.

The meetings have been going well. A translator has to sit in there and I’m sure a lot is lost in translation. I just got finished meeting with one of my ESL student’s mother. I was talking and Sophia was translating. Then, Mrs. Byeon talked a lot in Korean. She was looking at me and talking and talking with the most sincere face. She was close to my face and looking me straight in the eye. I was waiting anxiously for Sophia to translate imagining the worse:

“She says you have the most beautiful eyes. She’s an Art professor at the university here so she notices stuff like that.”

Ok! Works for me. Thank you, thank you. Nice to meet you!

Next!

This week is gonna be a breeze!

October Twenty Nine

1. It is very funny to me the names the Grammar book uses in example sentences. Each class, I literally have to explain that real people, real Americans, do have names like this; and if they don’t, you’ve got to expect them to.

Herbert, Yolando, Reevja, Paulo, Patty, Boris, Harry, Barry, Lloyd…the list goes on.

 I’ve never met anyone by the name of Boris, but it could happen. I have, however, met a Sky, Genesis, Jesus, Meadow (Charis: imagining her singing Baby Bubble Bee) and Xochitl. This is all too confusing for my students.

2. The name “Jenny” is really popular here for people to choose as their “American” name. They spell in Jeany, Jenny, Jinny. It can get really confusing because they are very serious about HOW you pronounce their name. I get it. I mean, I understand that if you throw an A in there you want it to make a different sound. It just gets ridiculous. One student’s name is Jenny- short E sound. Her sister’s name is Jinny- short I sound. They are sisters! Jenny and Jinny. When you say it in conversation it sounds the same! I’ll be like “How’s your sister Jinny?” “It’s JINNY!” Jenny will emphasize. “That’s what I said ‘Jinny’!”

3. I ate a chicken’s foot. I forgot to tell you that, but I did. It was at the Field Day when all the parents brought picnic lunches for everyone. Parents were just throwing food at us–lots of food! One mother came up, and with the utmost sincerity, handed me a chicken’s foot. Then she starts motioning for me to eat it. I couldn’t be a jerk and refuse it, so I ate it. Not the whole thing, cause that’s just impossible, but I knawed on it for a good long while.

4. I had my middle school Science students watch an episode of The Magic School Bus to review our chapter on water. They had to answer questions while they watched. the bonus question asked what the teacher’s name was. After just hearing her name repeated in teh video (Miss Frizzle), here’s what they wrote:

 Ms. Freeism

Ms.  Prizil

Ms. Freesle

Miss Prisol

Frezel Teacher

 

Christmas time is near…

I bought my plane ticket home today! Yipee. It’ll only cost me 60% of my monthly paycheck. Not bad.

I’ll be home December 19 at 3:35 pm (GSP) and leave February 2. It’s a long break and I have no idea what I’m going to do! I’m so excited about that! yay!!

We Americans are currently skipping out on a faculty training session. It’s about editing photos on the computer…in Korean. Wouldn’t do any of us any good.  It’s actually for us to learn so we can help with the yearbook. That is gonna be lots of fun. Kids here don’t even understand what a yearbook is. Luckily, Josh was a Journalist major so they think he can do stuff like that. Glad it’s not me!

Grace is a lady here who has really helped us out. She was especially helpful to Kimber when she was here alone. Grace is Korean but grew up in Japan and then Canada. She went to Bob Jones University and has lived the last 20 years in Canada or America. She is a great godly woman. Her husband is the associate pastor of the church we attend. She just moved back to Korea this past February and tries really hard to make us comfortable. Every sunday night, she buys us “western” food. Last Sunday we had fried chicken.

Grace has been working on a comic book about Ruth. She is an amazing artist. Since I’m teaching Grammar at school, she asked if I wouldn’t mind editing her book. She is getting it published in America and her editor fell through. I’ve been reading over it and doing the best I can. It’s a really good book and it will eventually be published in America. Plus, she is paying me, so that’s a bonus too.

I also tutor her daughter in reading. Celeste is bilingual and far more advanced in English than her peers. So twice a week, I just read chapter books with her through guided reading and comprehension strategies. That’s the funnest thing I do here. Working with Celest and doing normal 3rd grade stuff made me realize how much I just want to teach intermediate grades back in the US. I know I’m here now for a reason, but in the future, I definitely want to teach 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade in America.

Obviously, it’s a struggle for me to teach middle and highschool Science but I feel like I’ve accomplished something great after each lesson. Grammar isn’t too bad…and elementary English, well, that’s my biggest struggle. It’s like teaching kindergarten with the boring, repetitious material. I’m learning new ways to make it as interesting as I can and I love my students, but it is a challenge to enjoy it. After meeting Mr. Joseph in Seoul this weekend , I realized that it is a conscious decision each day to enjoy teaching ESL. However, I dunno if I could stick with it and teach it for decades like he has. He truly has a gift. I’m definitely trying my best and I want to see these students succeed. It’s just that when I’m sitting alone with Celeste and we are reading “The Magic Treehouse” series, I feel like I’m doing exactly what I’m suppose to be doing. I love it…

 

First trip to Seoul

So about two weeks ago, Principal An (via Ted) told me that I was going to Seoul on the 22nd and 23rd for ESL training. (I use this curriculum from Japan called MeySen to teach the elementary students Engilsh.) This past Monday, Josha and Kim were informed that they’d be going to Seoul with me. Although we asked Ted and others during faculty meetings all week, we didn’t know when we were leaving until Wednesday night, the night before.

The school was going to pay for transportation, hotel rooms, and give us money for food.  Wednesday night, we were all in the office with no clue what was going on. Kimber asked Ted what the deal was, what we were doing, where we were going, etc. Ted was like “Have we never not taken care of you?” “Well, no”, she said, but they (the school) has also never told us plans more than 24 hours before….so I dunno if that would count for “taking care” of us.Ted just kept saying that the Seoul school would take us out to dinner, help us find a hotel, etc. “They’ll take care of you..”

Thursday morning all we knew is when Ted was picking us up for the bus terminal. Ted drops us off at the bus terminal and we head to Seoul. All we had is the money they gave us and directions to the school we were going to observe at. The driving directions were in Korean so we could just give them to a taxi driver.

We left Gwangju around 7:30 am and arrived at the Seoul bus terminal around 11ish. After walking in circles trying to figure out how to get out of the bus terminal, we make it outside and get a taxi. One: we chose the smallest taxi available and the front passenger seat is all jacked up so no one could sit in it. We all had our over night bags and are practically sitting on top of each other in the taxi. Two: taxis are double the cost in Seoul. We were going to use school money, but it was jsut a little ridiculous.

Thirty minutes later the taxi stops in front of mulitple buildings and is pointing like we were there. The only problem was, we didn’t know what building we were suppose to go to. GVCS never told any of us the school name, anyone at the school we were visiting, or what time we were suppose to be there….or what we are going to be doing when we got there. We choose a building that had a church name on it and bikes in front of it and headed inside.

We walked in, with our luggage, and we were just standing there in the lobby. Through a door we see a white woman and a Korean man sitting at dinner tables converted into desks. They do nothing. We stand there a little longer. Finally, after waving a bit to the Korean man, he came out and asked if we had come to visit their church. “Uh…no, actually we are from GVCS in Gwangju and we were sent to observe MeySen curriculum?” “Oh…uuuhmm” he said. “We do use the MeySen but we have no knowledge of anyone coming to observe”

Great. So not only did we feel like idiots waving down strangers but he wasn’t even expecting us! Juuuust great.

We had this man, Luke, call GVCS to talk with our secretray or Ted (who we thought had called this school) but since it was “Revival” all day Thursday and Friday, noone was in the office… it just kept getting better and better.

Luke frantically starts running around seeing how to make us comfortable and get us in a classroom to watch. The problem is, the whole school had just been busy all week with a big open house, so Thurs. and Fri were “free” days. Most classes were chilling or going to a local park.

In the meantime, Luke send us down to the cafeteria to eat lunch. It was like being a new kid at a school coming in the middle of the year. There we were, with our plates of food smiling awkwardly at a whole cafeteria of strangers trying to find a place to sit. We manage to sit by other English teachers who were nice. None of them had ever heard of GVCS or the city of Gwangju. They all thought we were new teachers for their school.

Great.

The school we went to is called DaHunJin Academy. It’s a Christian school but has about 250 students…60 kindergarteners…big. Lots of kids. They have 9 foreign English speaking teachers and have Mr. Joseph.

Mr. Joseph is from the actual MeySen Academy in Japan. His parents taught ESL in Japan so he was raised there. He actually never went to American until he was 25yrs. old. Now he is middle aged. He has the most unique accent. He speaks English, of course, but it’s a very unique accent. He speaks Japenses fluently. His sister and her children are still in Japan at the school. His nephew is in a lot of the Meysen DVDs because every aspect of the curriculum is made at the MeySen School…Anyways, he’s great at what he does…too bad he had planned to take all his classes to the park that day.

Since we showed up, UNEXPECTED, he changed his schedule and taught class anyways. We all felt SO BAD. These poor children were looking forward to a fun day and because GVCS NEVER CALLED THEM AND TOLD THEM WE WERE COMING all DaHunJin’s plans were shot.

I cannot tell you how bad Kim, Josh , and I felt. We came and intruded on this school who wasn’t expecting us. And on top of that–we had no idea how or where to find a hotel. Since GVCS said “the school had is covered” and since this school didnt know we were coming, well, we had no where to stay.

Luke was kind enough to call around and find a resonable hotel. He even drove us there at the end of the day.. he also kept saying “I wish we would have known you were coming…I wish we could have planned this”. Which made it all worse. Yeah, Luke, I wish you guys would have been informed too.

I don’t care if it’s a cultural thing to send foreign teachers to a city 4 hours away and not warn the school we are headed too. It was very unprofessional and a huge inconvenience to DahuJin. As we were leaving Friday after spending almost a full school day observing at their school, Luke shook our hands and said “You can come back anytime just call us ahead of time please.”

UGGGGGH. It was like he punched me in the gut. I was so upset with GVCS. GVCS made us three-Josh, Kim, and me– look like rude Americans.

The whole trip wasn’t horrible or awkward.  I did learn a lot and Mr. Joseph gave me a lot of tips and information that I will put to use in my classroom.

And, we had a fun few days in Seoul to explore and go out to eat.

The school provided slippers for us to wear int eh classrooms. GVCS doesn't enforce the rule of taking shoes off t enter classrooms. This was really annoying.

The kindergarteners learning that we ruined their fun day

The creepy motel we stayed in Thursday night.

MEXICAN!!!! We pigged out at this place! It was very funny to be greeted with "Hola" and "Adios" by a bunch of Koreans.

Look! A menu per person! I feel like I'm back in America already!

We saw Sun from LOST! She was everywhere!

Red Mango is what my favorite yogurt place Pink Berry was copied after...or Blueberry Frog. Delicious!

yummy

We took the subway to Myeon Dong and went shopping! Forever 21, Gap, Hello Kitty Store....EXPENSIVE. Forever 21: everything OVER $30. Gap: triple the price

Before I left for Seoul, Jessica informed me that Beyonce was playing two shows there while we’d be there. We totally ran into when we were shopping.

Be jealous.

We got some street food in Namdaemun.

Our pineapples on a stick

a hard boiled egg in corn bread.

We did not care to try this street food...

We ate dinner at Guiness Book of World Records: World's Largest Department Store: Shinsegea. I got a ham and cheese wrap (in crepe).

Mudong. Dumplings.

Finished the night with coffee looking over downtown...wonderful.

Tired. Catching the subway to go to the bus terminal adn head back to Gwangju. It was a long, busy day.

Kimber made a friend on teh subway. She finished telling him how exciting and busy our day was and he couldn't take it! He said it made him tired!

And then we got on the bus and rode 4 hours back home. I have not done anything today. I appreciate lazy Saturdays like this. Now I’m going to walk to the market and pray something looks appetizing to eat for dinner. Im craving a roast with potatoes and carrots and am pretty sure I won’t find that there. Bummer.

Photo Update

Karrik got a perm.

after

Even their Bible lessons give the "peace" sign

A typical meal + rice. This was lunch after church on Sunday. Everyone eats at the church. The women cook, the men clean.

The pears are huge. I know I’ve said this before, but maybe these pictures will give yo ua better idea. If not, just go by what Kimber said: “they are the size of a toddler’s head”

We cut up one pear and everyone teacher can have a slice!

Some students were wearing these all day at field day so we stole them. Pastor Ko is in teh background. He invited us to his wedding next month. I'm pretty excited about it!

This is Miss Hon, the school secretary. This is her niece. She is the cutest kid I've ever seen...ever! Sometimes we will pick her up on the way home from school and she'll just sit in the back seat and sing Korean nursery rhymes or practice the English alphabet. PRECIOUS!

I went to a musical concert Monday night. The school/church hosted a benefit concert for a blind clarinet player. He is trying ot raise funds to go to school in America. He’s already been in school in Korea and Germany. This was the concert hall. Pastor Park’s daughter, Soy-e, also played in the concert. She plays the clarinet and is in school in Germany as well. The blind musician, Chung, supports a local home for special needs people. He invited them. It was cool. (We were there 2 hours early….that’s why it’s empty. The place was packed though!)

The cable news people interviewed Josh and he’ll be on TV. My chin or hair may be on TV. The camera kinda made me mad. He definitely was sexist and kept ignoring me. Boo. Grce (the Canadian/Korean) says it might be on American TV. It’s suppose to air here on Oct. 30. Grace was elated, like was freaking out, that Josh got on TV. Woopie!

We got invited to the reception afterwards and got introduced. Not sure what they were saying about me but I had to stand and bow for like 5 min. “krrrrr, ayaaaaaaa,krrrrr RACHEL krrrrrk ayaaaaaa…”

That's Chung. In the foreground is my empty milk shake. I looked at teh menu and it said in English "milk shake." I asked what flavors they had. They said "milk" ..."milk shake".

My elementary students....

They are a tough group. One in particular….well maybe 3 in particular. That’s a big percentage since I only have 8  of them! Slowly but surely they are respecting me….I’m pretty sure they hate me though.

Henry

James

Celeste (raised in Canada, Grace's daughter; she just moved to Korea last February adn is bilingual)

Justin

Christa, James' sister

Lisa

Charles and Karrik

“Rice is something you eat when you want 2,000 of something.” -Mitch Hedberg

1. Our sister school with over 1,000 students had to close (for two weeks) because of Swine Flu. The dreaded INFLUENZA! So now, we all have to take our temperature every morning and record it on a chart.

2. Married people don’t wear wedding rings here….or at least the people in my life. No one at church or school that is married wears a ring except Grace. She is from Canada so she doesn’t count.

3. Saturday was Athlete’s Day at the park. Students’ parents came to participate in activities like: pull and pull (tug of war), jump rope, hoola hoop, soccer, volley/soccer game (we named voccer… you play on a tennis court, have a net lower than a volleyball net, and can only use feet and head like soccer), dodge ball, three legged race, and a picnic. They divided everyone into two teams: blue and white. I, of course, was on the blue team. Every single year I was at New Life Christian Academy I was ALWAYS placed on the blue team for field day. Always. So it was no surprise when I looked at the list and saw that I  was on the blue team.

It was quite a humorous day because all directions and instructions were given in Korean. People would be running around getting ready and in order and then I’d hear “Rachel!!” and they’d place me somewhere. I never knew what game we were playing until a ball came flying at my head (like in dodge ball). It was so chaotic no one even thought to translate.

 I fell so many times on Saturday. First, I got paired with our most competitive student: Joshua. He was pumped about our three legged race and I was pretty sure I could keep up with him. About 3 steps in I completely collapsed. “Teacher, teacher, teacher, teacher”. I started laughing and then really couldn’t get up. “Teacher, teacher, come, teacher, teacher”. I completely stained my GVCS polo shirt and my pride. About an hour later, I got my feet knocked out from under me while jump roping. They had a big rope and each team had to see how many teammates they could fit running under the rope. I felt like I was in grade school again.. so exciting!  “Cinderella, dressed in yella, went up stairs to kiss her fella…” I am horrible at hoola-hooping and do not like Korean tug of war. Well one, they handed out gloves with rubber palms to every single person for tug of war. That was a nice gesture but a little over the top I thought. Plus, the gloves made my hands smell like fish, which was just disgusting. I also was put in charge of making up a “fight song” for the blue team. Luckily, they thought the first one to come to my head was ingenious: ” We will, we will, rock you!” Except they changed up the lyrics to :” We are, we are, Chung team, wiener!” “Chung” is “blue”,  ”wiener” is “winner”. We were not winners that day but like the cheer said : weiners. We lost horribly at every event.

It was very cool to see and meet my students’ families. All the moms are hot babes. They are all super skinny and filthy rich. None of them look old enough to have teenagers.

4. Pastor Park is THE man around town. After field day he took us to the nicest Chinese restaurant in Gwangju. Grace came along to translate. When she realized where he was taking us she started freakig ou” Oooooh. Ooooooh!” It was at the very top of a five star hotel. We had our own private room. He knows everyone so he just walks in to any kind of place and gets the best service. I can tell a big difference between Chinese and Korean food. Here, of course, the Chinese food can still be super spicy, but I find it a bit more appetizing. We were served a four course meal. After the second course of FLAMING CHICKEN, I thought I was going to melt right there at the table. All there was to drink was HOT tea. I could feel my lips burning and my cheeks turning red. I was regretting wearing socks and boots. The room was stuffy and hot anyways but with all that hot food I felt like the rich man begging Lazarus for just one drop of water! I miss Chinese restaurants that serve you a huge glass of sweat tea with your meal.

5. The other day before dinner, one of my students, Brian, was hanging out in the office. “I hunger for food” he said.

6. Anytime someone sneezes I automatically say “Bless you”. My students always giggle because they don’t understand why I say it. I’ve explained the meaning behind the saying before but they just look at my with blank expressions. I still say it.

7. Remind me to play Dibba Dibba Dip with you.

8. Every Korean male has to serve a mandatory two years in the military. He must complete the two years before he turns 35. I just look at all my boy students and think about this and I get so sad. They are not butch by any means. My poor, frail tweens will have to be in the military! Ted actually gave up his Korean citizenship and became nationalized in America so he wouldn’t have to serve. Being so close to N. Korea, it’s a very scary reality.

Woe is me.

I don’t know why, but I feel homesick today. I dunno…maybe I should stop scanning through Facebook. All that does is make me feel left out. I feel like I’m missing stuff that’s going on.

All I wanna do is watch crappy television and veg out on the couch. The problem is, I don’t have a television. I don’t even have a couch…and now that I mention it, I haven’t seen one couch since I’ve been here. I miss couches. I’m sure they have them here but there’s just no room for them in every studio apartment I’ve been in.

I just want to watch a movie that doesn’t have to download of buffer every 10 minutes! I wanna be able to drive to Target when I want to and get Chick-Fil-A and have a good glass of sweet tea. This is just ridiculous people! We stopped in the KFC at the bus terminal and we were just like “ugggh”. No maceroni. No mashed potatoes with gravy. No KFC for us! The K  in KFC must stand for “Korean Fried Chicken” cause their sides were stuff like egg tarts. No thank you. 

Plus, I’m so sick of rice. I didn’t even like rice in America. After having it twice a day, I really don’t want any. The problem is, for lunch and dinner at school I only have two options: 1. Eat a lot a rice and get full or 2. Eat very little  kimchi, tiny fish, octopus legs, quail eggs, vegetables (that taste like fish!) and not get hungry. I tried the whole “drink an entire bottle of water before a meal” thing so I’d fill my stomach up. It was just a pain  though cause then I had to pee every 20 minutes! Not cool.

And yesterday, all I could think about was stuff I won’t be able to do here and that I’ll miss. I won’t get to carve a pumpkin or go in a corn maze. I won’t get to eat Thanksgiving dinner, watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, watch the dog show, visit with family. I can’t wear my black and orange striped tights to school or have a Halloween party. No cupcakes!!! Gasp! (I just realized this this very moment!)

They don’t celebrate Halloween in Korea and I’m no witch or gothic person either–but I like Halloween. I like going to Hobby Lobby and seeing all the decorations. I won’t get to put a fall wreathe on my door this year…. I can’t pull out my pumpkin candy dishes. It’s really sad. I just feel like this is my favorite time of year: Halloween, Thanksgiving, fall. They all help me get ready and anticipate the Christmas holiday season. Being away I have to miss out on all my favorite stuff.  I have to wait a WHOLE YEAR before I can do this stuff again!

Fall scented candles do help  but creating some kind of thanksgiving dinner isn’t gonna be possible. Josh, Kim and I have thought about it but then we realized: we don’t have an oven. My elementary students use this curriculum for English that wasn’t developed in Korea but in Japan and America. This week we had a whole story/song about a turkey. They had no idea what a turkey was. People don’t eat turkey here. They don’t have turkeys here. They don’t eat chicken either. They just buy whole ducks and have them delivered to their apartments at 10pm and then they kill them and eat them for weeks. My neighbor did that. I was on the roof and I heard the most awful squealing and squawking. Three caged ducks were realizing their fate and started freaking out! I did too.

Ok, so, I’m sorry I had to complain for a second…but I’m just a little homesick today. I’m sure I’ll get over it. Maybe once exam week is over I will be busy again and not have so much time to think about how wonderful the Southeast is. …Maybe.

Something is vibrating in my apartment! I keep hearing it like it’s my cellphone. There is no way it’s my neighbor’s phone vibrating. I’m kinda going crazy! I’m  racking my brain trying to think of all the electronics I brought with me… computer, camera, iPod… I have an alarm clock, hair straightener, curling iron…nothing else I own here has batteries or plugs in! None of these things even vibrate.! What is that noise! Seriously….I cannot sleep. Every 2 minutes I hear it.  I’m freakin’ out here.

Maybe my upstairs neighbor has their cellphone on the floor or something…

Great. This is going to be a long night.

My weekend:

I’m sitting in class. I have just administered my first mid term. It’s weird. I taught the stuff, I made the test, I gave it out. Me, me, me. I’m in charge. Very strange. It wasn’t but a year ago I had sweaty palms sitting in college taking a mid term of my own. It’s nice to be on the other side of the desk.

I just wanted to share some pictures. I ate cow’s esophagus this weekend. I also rearranged my bedroom and enjoyed Chinese take out.

The gray bumpy stuff is the esophagus. The red is raw liver. I ate this. So Bear Grylls.

Dinner with David adn Ted Friday night.

This is like really thick pork that looks like bacon before it’s cooked. Besides the kimchi and raw cow parts, this is a wonderful meal. This is Korean BBQ. Remember how no one would go to the Korean BBQ place with me by Red Robin? You missed out.

In the bottom right corner of that pic it may look like mozerella but it isn’t. It’s tofu. They eat that a lot here too. I just want cheese so bad!

We were happy for good food! Yum! This week at school we'd had had some pretty gross lunches. Tiny octopus and squid legs on two different days.

It took me a while to figure out what this was. This is in all the public restrooms. It's a bar of soap on a pole. All they use here is bar soap.

I put my bed against the wall. I have a lot more floor space now. Plus, this makes it more comfortable to watch movies on when we have movies nights.

Always take your shoes off at the door. I hate this laminate floor. Its bubbly and cheap. Every apartment I’ve been in has this though.

Alright! I’ve gotta pass out some candy. Exams are fun!