Back to Korea (pizza)

Before I left Korea Patrick came over one night and we ordered pizza:



The funness that ensued!

Views around my school

How to eat duck in Korea

Step 1: Hot grill

Step 2: Add duck

Step 3: Prepare Sesame leaf

Step 4: Add veggie and meat goodness and ENJOY

Stealing Videos

Youtube stolen from Patrick mainly Aaron's last weekend

Speeches, the cold, Goodbyes, and the cold

So at my open class I met a teacher who didn't have a native teacher. Her school was having a speech competition and she wanted to have a native speaker judge. So she asked if I could come help (well I never actually get asked anything directly, but she asked my co-teacher who told her yes and then asked me...same-same) .

So I headed over there Wednesday. Oh my goodness the kids were ADORABLE! It was fifth and sixth graders. They seemed to fall in two categories which I will horribly explain using politically incorrect stereotypes. If I offend anyone you probably don't know me, some of my nearest and dearest friends fall into these stereotypes and are nothing like the pigeonhole I am putting people in so please, in advance, don't be offended.

The first category is the engineering student who cannot make a public speech to save his life (you know, very monotonous, no nonverbal cues, same pace the whole way through, few visual cues etc.). The other is the SDSU PR student who is basically a ham (their voice hits more tones than a grand piano, their props are sewn onto their clothes, their hand motions are exaggerated and every word has a hand motion!). It was quite a kick to watch.

Some of the students gave speeches on their dreams. One's dream was to become to the head of the UN...the speech was surprisingly good...I feel like I suddenly have very low goals. Another speech was on how people should be nice and not write mean things online because people kill themselves(and actress in Korea recently committed suicide), and one girl read a Halloween story she wrote. There was definitely a lot of different stuff and it was fun to listen to it all. Plus I got $50 (well with the won now about $40) and a box of chocolates...woo!

It is starting to get cold, I wear my ski jacket about every day and do all my lesson planning in bed with the covers pulled up to keep me warm.

This Tuesday Ant leaves the country and heads back to South Africa and this Saturday Aaron leaves. Goodbyes stink! But I guess I am going to have a lot more of them now that I am halfway through (only 10 more teachers classes until I leave).

Cute Random Story

So, I was teaching a discussion class (meaning I am on my own) and my students were being a little rowdy. So I gave them a little, "Hey, I need everyone to be quiet" and one of the boys (not even a very fluent boy, classic average kids who barely speaks English properly) looks me straight in the eyes and says, "Don't worry baby, I've got it covered"

REALLY?

really?

REALLY

He never did tell me where he learned that must have been some song or something. It was probably one of the highlight of my teaching career, although there was the kid that said two...

Well there was the one boy who would never speak English and I went over to him because he had his hand raised. So He crinkled his brow stared at his paper in complete concentration looked up at me and said, "Two?" while pointing to his paper.

I was so proud of him I nodded and said, "Yes, write it twice"

He got so proud he sat up straight in his chair shoulders back and beaming with happiness began writing. His friend, who grew up partly in America looked at me and commented snarkily, "He's very proud for only saying one word, " Prat!

I smiled and told him that that one word was perfect and I do not require my students to say, "Excuse my professor, but am I required to write this word for a total of two times?," "Two?" would suffice just fine.

Suwon RandomTimes

Well guess what happened recently?Makea wish!
It was Leona's birthday so the whole crew got together to celebrate
My eye makeupey stuff forHalloween...yep Ilooktired I am battling a cold:(
Look I was a "killer bee" I made some wings out of nylons and coat hangers, wore yellow and black and used straws as antennas...oh ... annnnd I had plastic guns...get is KILLER bee...hehe I am so clever

Suwon Festival

Restrooms

This is on my city's website...no joke:

The Meaning and Concept of Restrooms

Restroomsin our life, illuminating the past

A man and a Restroom

A desirable restroom culture

Vision to make the restroom beautiful in the 21st century

WOW

Vacation Thus far

Welll.....

Friday I went out with a bunch of my fellow teachers in my province...lots of fun, went out a little late..too late probably....oh well

Saturday basically went straight from the...library (this is my new code word for bar) to a bus to Chuncheon a town north of Seoul and...east...in Ganwando...ANYWAYS headed up there for a friends going away birthday party. Involving, an island, sausages, dodgeball, capture the flag, soccer, this game you play like volley ball..but with your feet annnnd...ultimate frisbee. Went to a library called Sheriff's later that night, and ultimately ended up Norebanin' it (ban means room, nore singing, so its Kareoke), grabbed brekkie annnd I was on another bus

Sunday Picked up my stuff from my place got on another bus to Mokpo (5 hours south) slept most of the bus. Walked around Mokpo, saw and AWESOME sculpture park hiked up the mountain a little, went to a jim-jil ban (again ban meaning room, jim jil meaning steam...so like a sauna) showered, chilled in the hot tubs, and then took a sleeping mat to a corner and conked out!

Monday Woke up and caught a bus to the ferry, took my five hour ferry, arrived in JEJU!!! Met up with Min and walked around seeing the beautiful island: valleys, beaches, waterfalls, etc. Went to dinner with new friend Zach had eel. Sooo fresh it was still moving, literally. They cut it up and its still moving and they put it on the grill...yummmy. Off to a library and then home for the night.

Tuesday Met up with Maxie (we met rafting a while back) and hiked up a Mountain with her BEAUTIFUL, got a ride home and now just writing this to keep you updated...hope all is well :-)

The most random uncultural blog EVER

Sooo...

My friend I usually send daily pointless e-mails is out of town, so rather than send an e-mail to not be read for a few weeks, I am writing my usual pointlessness in blog form.

First off, todays class was ok...except I forgot to remind them to bring jump ropes in so we couldn't do that part which is a fun part :-(

Lunch I have with the teachers, which is nice. Turns out one of the teachers speaks WAY more English than I thought, he's just uber shy. But since it was just me him and another teacher he felt he had to talk. Really his English is AWESOME! So its nice to know I have someone I can go to other than the three friends I have at school that speak English.

So I stopped by my new little grocery store (just veggies and fruits) they rebuilt after the fire. The dude there's English ROCKS! I am totally shopping there all the time. He teaches me the names of veggies in korean and tells me my Korean rocks..which it doesn't, but I am sooo going to pretend he's right :-)

Finally, I was just looking at my fridge deciding what to drink, this is my thought process, "Cheap wine, expensive wine...macoli, guiness....cheap wine, expensive wine, macoli, guiness...hmmmm..."

ahh yes mystery option I had COMPLETELY forgotten about..."Box 'o wine" ohhhhh yeah :-)

So...I cooked

Like the fourth time in 14 days...pretty proud of myself (granted one of the days it was mando and potatoes, probably shouldn't count)

But I cooked yesterday

I put looots of garlic powder and some oil in a pan

added chopped potatos got them softish

added chicken breast

add some broccoli soup in a bag(no idea Dave gave it to me when he left)

add LOOOOOOOOTTTS of hot sauce and pepper

add can 'o carrotsand

Stir occassionally until water evaportates

throw a dash of cinnamon in at the end..why...I read somewhere its good for you and you should try and have some every day.

I thought it was delicousness...

Sooo....where's my cooking show? I'll call it, "Clueless in Korea"

Eugene's B-day/Good bye Chasper

Sooo...Friday night was Jasper and Charolotte's goodbye graffiti party!

A graffiti party is where everyone wears a white shirt youhand out permenant markers and then you write away to our hearts content! Its great for going away parties because you get a souvenier of your great friends :-)

Plus I owed them money for the gas money road trippy thing a while back soI figured I'd buy them booze for a going away party, especially since they dont drink and I do :-)

So we had good times, and FONDUE! :-)


Saturday I headed to Seoul early to meet up with Amy, Critophe and Olivier. They needed to get cameras or something and I wanted a PHONE! I learned a while back its best to have a Koreanspekaing NON Korean raised friend to help you with these things. So I dragged Amy with me. Let me tell you thoughI LOVE Konglish.

English/Korean
Speed/Speeduh
Pixels/Pixeluhs

You get the idea :-)

That night was Eugene's birthday party! We went to the Outback since he wanted a steak and ended up at a bar called Queens
Observe the outfits! (yes smart ones a gay bar)

It's ok though mommy daddy don't be worried I only had a little to drink, see:

Thats me saying I'll only have a little!

Sunday I met up with some friends for book club (kinda), returned Patrick's camera so he'd have it for his three week vacation (sooo frigin' jealous), and had lunch with the ladies before coming home to prepare for summer camp.

So far summer camps been good, a little fursterating, but hey, that's life, right?

:-)

Carissa

30 speeches, lots of facts

OK random facts about my school taken from 30 of my students speeches on my school.

First all the numbers:

My school just opened, October 4, 2005!!!

My school's library opened November 14th, 2006.

Our English hall just opened! December 13th, 2007!!

My school has 4 stories (I think we have 5 actually), 20 classrooms, 657 students(someone else said 653) and 49 teachers(someone else said 44).

There are 7490 books in my library.

Mottos ...:

The motto is, "Righteousnessand Wisdom" (ok some other student wrote Be Honest and Wise, and another stduent truth and wisdom)

Our school flower is a rose, and our tree is a pine tree.

The school is called a green school, so we can be friends with nature and learn to play safely with fresh air to breathe.

Etc:
Did you know my school's website won an award? Something about EQ and management...I don't know.

The library is called the dream hall!

DIRECT QUOTE FROM A STUDENT'S SPEECH, "We have lots of handsome male teachers"

We have a school band called "Chungcularam" (I have been wondering what the heck that band was called! They're pretty good, CONSTANTLY playing, "you give love a bad name")

Phone Drama/Bowling-Rama

OK...soo don't ever lose your phone in the first three months of living in Korea.

I can't get a new contract because my old contract is still valid.

I can't cancel my phone because I haven't had my contract for three full months.

I can't get a new phone with the same contract because my contract says I have to have a phone for three months before I get a new one.

So lemme get this straight, I want to GIVE THEM money for a new phone...and they say no? Because....

yep don't get it

But if they get a used phone turned in they will rent it to me for free until my contract expires and I can cancel it...does this make fiscal sense to anyone???

Really??

Anyways, after a few friends (fellow Gyeongi-do public school teachers) and I headed down to the bowling alley...first off, what kind of bowling alley doesn't have a bar?? REALLY?

We managed to have fun anyways, did ok the first game, sucked majorly the second game


Viva las zapatas de...erm...bowling? Lyall and Anton

Really his shoes has like gold speckles, sooo much fancier than mine.
Paying for everything at the end (Zarah, Eugene, Anton and David...oh and the nice cashier lady)

Awww look how happy bowling makes people!
OK, I know we're not blood related (well that we know of) but really, isn't that a Peck face?
Da boyz...erm..drinking, looking very serious and half grinning
He probably just bowled a strike or something, he was actually pretty good!
I think he's avoiding the camera
The damn ball is a pacifist! It doesn't want to hit the pins!!
OOOOK, see that blue thing it is your soap. Its like soap on a stick...ummm...yeah
The bowling alley, pretty easy to spot
Once again I wonder what goes on in here....


Yeah he's thrilled, eh

Soooo, yeah that was my yesterday...my today I meet Patrick at the bus station and tomorrow we head to the mud festival! Woot!!!