Day 150

Well, I only have 12 more days in Korea. My time has flown by so quickly.
.....I don't know what else to say. I feel I should update, but I can't think of what to say.

Next week, I have English camp at the elementary school. I'm taking the kids on a 'trip to America'. I'm a little nervous about it. It's my last week in Korea, and I am supposed to be teaching kids about life in America. It's been so long, I have a hard time remembering differences between Korea and America.
I'm also a little worried that it's going to make me so anxious to get home.
I need to start packing up soon. And cleaning.

Picture Post

Mary is adorable! I finally found out why her English is so good. She went to kindergarten in the Philippines, and her school was taugh all in English.

I was teaching my Wed. conversation group how to do the "WOW" thing for pictures. They thought it was really cool. I really am terrible. I tell them everyone does this, and I tell my roomies that the chicken dance is a classic American tradition.

MinKyu. He is such a pushover. He didn't mind us painting his fingernails. I added the heart and the cross. They were too ugly otherwise.

I can't imagine anyone would actually buy this! It looks like something you would only see in a magazine for a photo shoot. Therefore, I had to pose like a model. It couldn't be helped.

Miok and I being silly at Forever 21. We have the same headband on. Shiny silver bow.

I am such a goofy kid! But this couch was just calling out to me! I had to pose this way!

Miok and I at Doota, a shopping mall in Seoul for independent designers.

A Christmas shop! There were so many lights! I wanted to buy something, but everything felt so American! I wanted something in Korean.

This was a building! The men were scrolling up and down. Daniel was amazed by it! He couldn't figure out how it worked. It was kind of funny to see him trying to imagine it.

This is a mega church! They had translators for 6 different languages. The translator for English wasn't very good though. I listened to a little bit in Spanish.

This is Daniels normal pose. He's always taking pictures!


On my trip to Seoul, we went to Itaewan, which is a big foreigners place. I found a Mizzou hoodie! There was also a Nebraska hoodie, but I didn't feel it deserved a picture.


Kevin took this picture. He wouldn't stop taking pictures of me, so I was doing all sorts of crazy poses. This was gangster Korean.

KEVIN! This kid is hilarious! He's a little frustrating sometimes though because he spends all class goofing off and doesn't do his work. He'll only do what he's supposed to be doing if I sit next to him and walk him through it. And by that, I mean point to each new problem/sentence he's supposed to work on. He also hijacked my camera and took a ton of pictures.


My students seem to think that I have long curly hair. I don't mind though. They also think I'm extremely skinny. That's a little scary.


My 5th/6th grade class, enjoying the cake I brought in for our Thanksgiving day party!


Two of my 3rd grade students. The one in pink just joined the class, and I think she really likes me. She's a sweet girl.

Not a real post

After a terrible week of trying to get things figured out for next semester back home, and then a weekend of pretty unsuccessful shopping in Seoul, I'm tired and a little too depressed to make a good post.

And Thanksgiving is coming up this next week and that makes me feel even worse.

So I'll just post this fake filler-post to let everyone reading know I'm not dead, I'm just sad.

Days 99-105

Another Sunday, and another day with time for a post.

I mentioned in my last post that I was feeling much better after being sick for a week. I then had to go to school, and try to control a bunch of 1st/2nd graders who hadn't had class for a week and a half. My voice was gone after that. I was still sick-ish most of this week as well.

Not much happened this past week. My kids were normal. My conversation groups were normal (when we actually met). All in all, everything has been kind of....so-so.

Wednesday was Pepero Day, which is sort of like a valentines day, but where you only give pepero, which is....a stick biscuit dipped in chocolate. I only mention it because most of my friends, who all teach on Wednesday, got tons of Pepero, while I got none. It was pretty depressing, actually.

Some good things about this past week....I bought two dress-tops (what do you call tops that are too long to be a shirt, but not long enough to be a dress? Mini dress? Tunic-length top?), and a pair of boots off G-Market (like Amazon for Korea), and they all arrived this week. I really want to wear my boots, but I'm waiting until my suede waterproofing spray arrives. These were pricy, so I don't want to ruin them the first time I wear them.
My package from home also arrived, so I had stuff to munch on this weekend (most of the candy is gone already. -_-u).

The only other big thing....IT SNOWED THIS MORNING!
Daniel called when he was on his way to meet me so we could walk to church together and he said it was snowing. I didn't believe him, but it was. And of course, as luck would have it, it didn't start really snowing until we were on our way to the church, which was across the river.

Church was okay. I was really tired, and didn't understand much (er....more like...the translation given to me was so summerized, that I understood it the first time, and didn't need all the smaller points that went with it).
After church, Daniel, myself, Mr. Joe Lennon (a teacher at Daniels school), and another foreigner named David, all went to the movie theater and watched 2012. It was a pretty good movie. It's definitely my favorite genre (worlds-going-to-end-need-someone-to-be-compassionate-and-save-humanity) for movies though, so I was pretty much expecting it to be good. I was expecting it too be more....preachy than it was.

After the movie, Daniel and I went to Mr. Lennon's (I should learn his real name) house and watched Men In Black until dinner time, when Daniel went to eat dinner on campus with someone, and I went with Mr. Lennon and his family for samgyupsal. I felt a little weird just because Mr. Lennon is the only one who speaks English, but I've become comfortable enough being around Koreans that it wasn't too bad.

After dinner....I came home, and realized I had a ton of stuff to figure out and get done.
I need to book my flight back home, which I'm hoping I can get either on the 8th or 9th of January. However.....it's peak season, and I might have waited too long. However, I couldn't book a flight before I found out when the Winter English camp at my elementary school would be, and they wouldn't tell me until I found the right person to ask.

I also need to find a way to get this in-school deferment form for my student loans. I pulled it up the first time I was looking at it, but I haven't been able to get it up since then. I hope I didn't break it! I really need it!
I also need to figure out my schedule for next semester. I thought I had it all figured out last Spring, before I came to Korea, but when I looked at my degree audit, things had changed, and now I'm a little worried.
But if worse comes to worse, I'll just have to take a course during Summer school. I'm pretty sure I can still walk in May, if I only have one course or two left to take.

And on a different note...this is a picture of one of my 1st grade students drawing Chaewan, my guy TaLK scholar.

Text says: I hate Lim Chaewan
My kids are really rude because they're supposed to use a title for anyone elder, but my kids don't when they're talking about Chaewan.

Days 86-98

Well, Mom says it's time for another blog update.

Oct. 29-30, I went on a trip with the Tourism English Interpretation department to Oedo (pronounced way-do). It was alright, but the island felt very fake to me. It was just a bunch of foreign (normal to me) plants that a couple had planted on the island. The gardens were very exciting to the Korean students, but it felt just like gardens back home so nothing special. The view from the island was very beautiful though!
And the next day, we went to a temple. Temples are all the same after you see the first one, but the mountains are still beautiful.

Saturday was Halloween. Eunmee and I went to Suwon for a party some TaLK scholars from Chungbuk were planning. There were a lot of people and I had fun. All night long, Eunmee was being followed by creepers. I felt bad for her, but she didn't seem to mind all that much.
The party didn't end until 4am. Instead of searching for a place to stay, we went to the train station and chilled there for two hours until the first subway to Cheonan arrived. From Cheonan, we took the bus home to Gongju, and then Eunmee and I slept pretty much all day.

Monday, there were no KNU classes, so I didn't have a conversation group, and I received a text saying no TaLK classes all week because of swine flu. That was fantastic, since I got a cold sometime between the Halloween party and Monday. (Probably from not bringing my coat with me to the party. It's cold outside at 4am!)

I was sick all week, and felt pretty bad, so I canceled all of my conversation groups and just spent time at home resting. I started knitting a Christmas gift and I hope to have it done by the end of the month so I can send it home. After a week of doing nearly nothing, I feel a lot better.

Days 82-85

Friday, I had to go to Cheonan for a TaLK training session. It was really boring and stupid, but I got to see a lot of my friends, so that was good.

Afterwards, I came home for a conversation group. We had Vietnamese food. It was good.


Saturday, I hiked to one of the peaks in the Gyeryongsan ridge. Jina, Miok, Daniel, and I all went. I had a lot of fun. It was so beautiful when we got to the top! It took us 7 hrs to get to the top and back down. Jina was pretty worn out. The rest of us were just crazy. I think we were all a little dehydrated, so our legs were shaking and we kept saying the silliest stuff and laughing non-stop. Daniel said he wanted to suck the sap out of a maple tree (talking about syrup), so Miok called him a tree vampire. It stuck. Daniel is now the tree vampire. Jina got the nick-name "One-woman gang". I am "Crazy hiker girl" and Miok is just "crazy girl!"

On Sunday, Jina, Eunmi, and I went to Everland, an amusement park. My legs were really sore from the day before, but I still had a lot of fun. I got to ride on the steepest rollercoaster in the world, at a 77degree angle desent.
I also got extra candy because I'm a foreigner! We went on a stamp scavenger hunt (sort of), and when we turned our sheets in, Jina and Eunmi only got one piece of each item. I, however, got three bars of chocolate, three sticker sheets, and a handful of hard candies.
I also bought a really cute witch hat hair clip. I must say though, it looks much cuter on Rose.

Monday, I didn't do much. School was good. Bingo, describing jobs, and writing stories about Halloween characters. I also tried teaching one of my 4th graders how to knit, because she bought some yarn and needles at a shop so she could learn to make a scarf. It was kind of cute. She really didn't get it.

Today, we did Halloween stuff at school! For the younger kids, we made animal masks, since they were learning about animals. For the two older classes, I had them try and find 15 ghosts I cut out and hid around the classroom. I think the kids enjoyed that. They also got candy.
Daniel wasn't teaching today because his school is closed for cleaning because of Swine Flu (My school will be closed until Sunday for cleaning), so he came to school with me today to see stuff. After school, we went for dinner and then shopping. Dinner was alright. Not the best, but okay.

I really like the other side of the river. They have a lot more shops and the shops have better stuff. I bought three pairs of socks, and a headband. I bought socks with JunPyo, from "Boys over Flowers", and socks with Kang Ho Dong and MC Mong from "1 night, 2 days".
Daniel bought a cell phone charm and lots of groceries! We went to a grocery store and he couldn't seem to stop buying things! Then when he was checking out, he said "When did I put at in there? I don't remember buying cheese." He's a total shopaholic when it comes to groceries.
We walked back from the grocery store because it was close and Daniel didn't want to pay for the bus ride back. It was a little cold, but nice. I enjoyed seeing more of the city and learning my way around.

When I got home, Jina had another gift for me. A cute turtleneck that I was wanting! It has cute puffy sleeves, but I don't have anything that will show them off. I guess that means I just have to go shopping again! ^^

Day 81

My kids are so cute!
Agnes and Rosemary saw the book we were going to be reading at the beginning of class and started doing exactly what I was planning on doing. It was so cute that I had to record it. (I was planning on posting it, but blogger is still having issues with uploading things)

I also had to teach by myself today because Chaewan was sick. I thought it was going to be a disaster, but it really wasn't all that bad. Things didn't go smoothly, but they never do on Thursdays. First/second graders were running all over the classroom. Third/fourth graders were mostly okay. We changed units to job, so there was a lot of new vocabulary. I had flash cards, and I tried to make it interesting by showing the kids the flash card and asking questions to find out what the job was. The kids liked it when I remembered what the jobs were after we went through the cycle once "Is it a doctor?" "Yeah" "Police officer?" "Yeah!" "Nurse?" "YEAH!" "Pilot?" "YEAH!!!" etc. I was having so much fun, class ran over by five minutes. Fifth/sixth graders, we just had a video day because they were way too wound up and I was way too worn out. The problem with that was that the videos they watched were all in Korean, because naver loads a lot faster than youtube, and the only words I could understand were the cuss words.

We also had workers coming in and out of the classroom all day because my classroom has access to the roof. I had to stop a few 1st/2nd graders from going out there. I also gave 10,000won to one of my 2nd graders because she lost her money and spent all of class crying about it. I don't know what the money was for, but she seemed really upset by it, and it was only $10. Quite a bit for a 2nd grader to need, but maybe it was for books or something.