Fruit tarts, Tears, and Pillow Fights

Been another two weeks again since the last post, but a busy two weeks! Last Thursday we had another cooking class with the little ones. I'm not sure if you all are getting tired of seeing pictures of cute kids with aprons. Just let me know when you can't handle it anymore. Personally, I can't get enough of the bandanas that come along with them. Just in case the cooking projects explode and their hair needs protection.

 

 

Big bite

 

That night it was the dreaded evening to say goodbye to Amanda Teacher at the usual big staff dinner. One reason why this post is so late is that I really couldn't handle writing it. I'm going to miss her terribly. We all sat in a back room at a Daechang Gui (대창구이) restaurant (intestines!). They were actually pretty good. A bit chewy as one might expect from intestines, but not bad. I enjoyed the sides and other vegetables grilled along with the intestines. As the night continued and the soju flowed our group got louder and louder. From the table next to us, also a bit rowdy, an older woman (who had her grumpy pants on according to Amanda) told us to be quiet, then proceeded to yell...I mean talk...with her friends. Oh well, we were having fun. 

 

 Then these showed up

 

 

 

 Solomon Teacher actually came to the Norebang with us!

Happy Birthday Christina!

 

 After a teary night of cheers-ing to random things, reading soppy goodbye letters, and speeches (by Solomon Teacher) we all went off to sing our hearts out at the norebang. I always feel badly for the Korean teachers when we go out all together. It seems like we all request our songs and despite their claims that they requested some too, none of them ever really sing! Shine teacher joins in with us, but for the most part the other teachers are on tambourine duty behind us on the couch. We got Jennifer to sing the last song. Her voice is amazing! In the middle of our singing crusade a cake was brought in to celebrate Christina (the newest teacher at Little America)'s birthday! After our time in the singing room was over, we headed to Woodstock to listen to some good music while spending as much time with Amanda as possible. Though we were all exhausted I think we wanted to make the night last longer.

Shine teacher and I at Woodstock playing with their hat collection there

The next morning Amanda would meet Solomon Teacher at 8 to get to the Airport! Before he arrived we worked together on clearing out her place and getting everything all organized for her trip home. After a teary goodbye I watched Amanda's taxi drive down the road and around the corner. I knew it wouldn't hit me for a few more days that she wouldn't be at work the next week. No time to sit on the curb and cry though. It was time to move from my old apartment to her beautiful, much nicer, much bigger place....and cry. It took about 4 trips up the elevator holding as much as I could carry, but I got everything out! Then I got down on my hands and knees and scrubbed my old place clean for Christina who would move in later that day.

The picture above is my new view! This actually looks straight out towards Little America. Its to the left of that tall building in the back with the big orange stripe up the middle of it. Anyways, this new apartment is going to make it so much easier to have visitors (hintity-hint-hint).

The next week at school was a bit of a whirlwind. The new teacher getting her bearings, test scores and project reports due, planning for Pajama party day that would happen that Friday. This week, Thursday to be exact, marked my one-year anniversary of being in Korea! From that day forward, all of the celebrations and parties at Little America would be my second time around! Can't wait for some, especially Halloween...costume ideas are forming.

Pajama day was a blast! All the students showed up in their best pjs and were excited to participate in the day of fun that we had planned for them. In the morning they rotated around to different stations in the school. I was in charge of the night-time-routines room. Here we talked about what they did before they went to bed. We taught key expressions and vocabulary like "Mom, please tuck me in!" and "sing a lullaby". When all of our expressions involved Mom doing things I asked my co-teacher whether we should make it a bit more gender neutral. She said that it's pretty much only the moms who take care of these kinds of things. While a lot of students talk about their parents, I do notice that it's mainly about their moms. They say their dad goes to work and then comes home an sleeps. It's sad that they have to work so much and miss their child growing up! Korea has to work on that...Anyways-- Katrina was in charge of the story room, and Christina was teaching the lullaby "Hush Little Baby". Kaitie would come in later to lead the games for the entire group.

Power to the Pajamas

Pretending to be the kid with Shine Teacher as my mom. Aka I was tired and wanted to lay down

"Kimbab rolls"

 Time for pillow fights!...The tamest pillow fights I've ever seen. Students at home would be on the ground wrestling. These kids lightly tapped and pushed so that they didn't hurt their friends. While it was cute, it took a while to get a winner. Only a few students worked out the strategy where they just hold their pillow out so the other person pushes and loses his or her balance. A cute and controlled game though! (Control is key Kaitie haha well done).

 Then it was sleep walking relay time. Students wore sleeping masks and walked from one end of the room to the other to get their stuffed animal and bring it back to bed.

 

 

After the games, I was already in my pajamas, so I felt like I needed a nap. No time for that though because it was Birthday Party and Song Contest time! Jean, one of my girls, was celebrating her birthday this month with two other girls.

 

 Lion Sleeps tonight

Some excellent jumpers in this class

Why so serious?

 

Idaho Class with their silly smiles- show some teeth ladybugs!

After lunch it was craft time- we would be making dream catchers. It was fun to teach the students about them. Before today, none of them had heard of them! I remembered what Mum told us about the dream catchers and if you stuck your fingers through the holes the bad dreams would be released again, allowing them to haunt you for another night. I left out the rather scarey end to that. I also left out my memory of one of my sisters poking her finger through my dream catcher to make me mad...hmm who was that?

 The concepts behind our crafts are always fine. It's when we start doing them that we realize we are a little over our heads. It ends up with letting the kids "finish", sending them off to watch the movie at the end of the day, and then redoing them all before sending them home. This means a lot of work for us, but happy parents. My girls did pretty well and they were happy with their beautiful pink dream catchers to hang beside their beds that evening.

While these  days are a ton of fun and we don't have to teach, it requires an endless supply of energy on the teachers' parts. No time to rest however, Elementary students were showing up ready for the evening of lessons. After work Kaitie, Katrina, Christina, and I met up with 6 other girls around the Bucheon area to have dinner and catch up after all of our vacations! It was such a fun group of girls. We had 찜닭 jjimdak which is a giant bowl of chicken vegetables and noodles in a...sauce of some sort. It tastes delicious but it veryyy filling! Overall a great girls' night.

The next day I had Alex Teacher over to help me plan Kaitie and I's Japan trip in a few weeks! Having never been there it was really difficult for me to think about where to go, where to stay, and what to see. Alex had been a few times and has friends there as well! She helped me go through the subway map and talk about where we should go on which days. We came up with a tentative schedule. This has made me that much more excited for this adventure! Another county to cross off the list. I plan on eating my body weight in sushi...

Before that trip I have some busy weekends! This next weekend we are going to Muuido (my first trip ever in Korea, told you I would be repeating stuff). While Muuido is not exactly the nicest beach in the world, it doesn't really matter. It's so much more about the group you go with. We have some great friends who are meeting us there. We will be cooking out, walking along the beach, and just enjoying each others' company. The weekend after that Kaitie and I are going to Korea Burning Man. If anyone knows about the Burning Man festival in Nevada this is....absolutely nothing like that. The one in the states is mainly thousands of people experimenting with drugs and running around spreading love. Korea, completely against drugs, will have a different kind of festival. While it is still about sharing your talents and accepting everyone for who they are, it is on a much smaller scale than its US counterpart. I'm looking forward to camping out on a beach and meeting new people! THEN its Japan time!!!! Can't wait. Throughout all of this, my graduate school courses began this past week. I will have several assignments due each week, therefore I will need to do some serious time management to get everything done before heading off on these weekend excursions. Thus far I think I will enjoy these courses! The other students participating all seem excited and interesting. Looking forward to getting to know them better as we learn about the Nature of Science and STEM Education! Wish me luck!

Korean of the post:
매우 바쁜하지만 괜찮아요
(mae-u babeunjiman gwenchanayo)
I'm very busy but it's okay. 

Until next time xoxo