Teacher, Turkey is What?

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! And no I don't just mean us Americans. Thanksgiving abroad does not solely serve us "Yanks". In fact, it is a time where every expat gets together and enjoys this American holiday together in a new country away from family. Instead of staying home eating cup-o-ramen crying about missing your mom's famous stuffing, foreigners here come together, usually in a pot-luck-style dinner to enjoy our friendship and rather unusual situation of being in a different country during this family-oriented holiday. Thanksgiving changes from being a holiday about the American pilgrims (let's be honest, is it still really about that back home?) to a time for new friends to appreciate each other and enjoy favorite comfort foods. The standard turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pie dinner is altered to fit 1) some back home favorites or 2) whatever is easiest to get here in Korea.

This year, a friend of ours (Danielle) graciously and bravely opened her home to a big Thanksgiving dinner. The night before I used my teeny-tiny toaster oven to cook up a big batch of maple-cinnamon carrots. My apartment smelled delicious and got me in the holiday spirit! Kaitie put together some delicious apple cider using some cloves and nutmeg we had miraculously found here, and Christina grabbed some chicken to bring along (see number 2 in the aforementioned types of food people bring). Walking up to her apartment we hear murmurs of activity creeping out from the window. Once the door opened we were greeted by a waft of a busy kitchen and animated conversations from those who had arrived earlier. For those of you who have lived in Korea, this is a common site in apartment gatherings...

And this isn't even everyone's

Everyone was keeping busy either preparing their food in Danielle's kitchen or swapping stories and picking on finger food before the main meal.

As you can see there was quite a spread including some green tea bars (supposed to be cake, but I told Tom I wouldn't say anything about that...sorry Tom), sushi, chicken, tomatoes, cheese and crackers, and of course some wine near the end there. Never thought I'd have a Thanksgiving where sushi and fried chicken were involved, but then again, never thought I'd be abroad for a Thanksgiving either. Here's a closer look at some of our menu items for the evening.

 Green Tea Bars

Traditional pilgrim sushi

 

 Pecan Pie

delicious green salad

Mashed taters

 

Apple crumble and ice cream

Once everything was set out, the hostess organized an assembly line of paper plates and hungry people. We took our small portions of everything (again, different from home) and enjoyed each other's company while probably reminiscing internally of our Thanksgivings past. Then, the teacher in me came out. I had printed out pictures of leaves on fall colored paper for people to write what they are thankful for. I expected the usual groans and moans as my students might give but for the most part people put a lot of thought into their responses. A general theme of supportive family and friends swept across a lot of the leaves as we read them aloud and tried to guess whose was whose.

Others wanted to show their thanks towards things like their "luscious (there isn't spell check on paper) brown hair", everyone's mothers, cheesecake, and Harry Potter.
 

 

Evenings likes this help me recognize that I've created a whole new family here abroad that I never would have met had I not chose to take this journey. Each of us has our own lives back home, but for now we need that support and love from others. We open up to each other quickly and easily. We provide comfort and advice for friends who we might have only met a few times before. We go to each other in times of homesickness or stress. We grab each other's hands and dance to a new favorite song. We over-share...sometimes a lot...

Who knows where we will be next thanksgiving, or even next month, but for this night we are together, bound by the pure fact of being away from home. For Thanksgiving I'm so grateful to have met each and every one of my friends here, those who made it to this dinner and those who didn't. No matter if you come from Canada, England, Scotland, Australia, Korea, Thailand, or America- when you're abroad, Thanksgiving is your holiday too.

I'll leave you with that happy and hopeful note. xoxo to my friends and family around the world. Know that I love you and am so lucky to have you in my life!

Korean of the post:
"큰 바지가 필요"
(keun bajiga pilyo)
"I need bigger pants"

So Full of Thanks

November is already winding down here. This last month has been a crazy whirlwind of testing and getting progress reports done for the parents as the term ends. Another change here is the winter cold returning. I definitely do not miss bundling up before going outside or sitting in the fetal position in front of my space heater...

No that's not what I'm doing now...

Don't you judge me.

The cold just makes me want to get back home for break even more. 32 days today! This week is especially tough as its Thanksgiving back in the states. I know the fam is planning a get together at our home in Delaware. While the whole family won't be able to make it, just the feeling of being with those you love on this holiday makes it warmer. I hope to Skype into dinner and pretend I'm eating chess pie with everyone as we wear our stretchy Thanksgiving pants.

Fortunately, I have made some amazing friends here who also miss Thanksgiving. Danielle has been kind enough to open up her home for a Thanksgiving dinner Thursday night to make it feel almost like home. A potluck style feast to enjoy good food and better company. Looking forward to this treat later on in the week!
A few things I'm thankful for right now.

1. My family xoxo an obvious first

2. My friends and coworkers here who have made my time in Korea incredibly wonderful and I'm so glad I've met each and every one of you.

3. My students...for keeping me on my toes every day

(Conversation with a boy, let's call him Barty)

         Me: Barty, how was the weather yesterday?
         Barty (obviously not paying attention): I ate cake!
         Me: I ... yes but ... *sigh*    was it good cake?

4. These super fuzzy pajama pants I'm wearing right now.
What can I say, I'm easy to please.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Not too much to catch you up on school wise- Last week we had graduation pictures taken by a professional photographer. I posted about this last year I believe and not much has changed. These poor children are put into ridiculous outfits and sat in an uncomfortable pose for way too long, keeping them from their lunch to finish on time. Needless to say, a few of them weren't the happiest children on Earth.

While placing my girls in an ancient, lacy, white dress,the teachers were trying to decide which hair accessory to go with the whole ensemble. Several big fluffy or sparkly pieces made their way into the picking, but I nixed those as soon as I could. What would match this lacy, white gown? Oh I know, a giant pink bow with sequins. NO! Just no. Vent over.

 

 

Teacher really...

 

Why...

 Friday was the monthly song contest and birthday celebrations. Kaitie's little turtle David was the only birthday celebrator that day. After several dances and birthday hugs, the kindergarteners were one month closer to Graduation in March. I've been thinking about which class I will get for my last 6 months here. I doubt I'll be given a new class of babies, but you never know!

I'll leave you all with my girls singing their November song, "The Homework Song" dedicated to my coteacher, Shine. Just melt with this adorableness. I realize as I've shown my friends here who aren't teachers, that they might be difficult to understand. It's cool how much better I've gotten at translating. If you can't understand a word start swapping letters for their usual counterparts- Example: swap "L" and "R", "F" and "P", and "Z" and "J", see where that gets you.

Until next time, Happy Thanksgiving, and I hope you all have something to be thankful for!

Korean phrase of the post:
방열판에 있는가?
(bangyeolpanae itneunga?)
"Is the heat on?"

Guys Be Quiet!

Hello Hello, another week down here! Countdown til I'm back in DE for Christmas break is currently at 40 days. Catching you up on this past week- it was a bit of a crazy one here. We had a lot of grades and progress reports to get finished. I usually got home from work in a bit of a zombie stage and didn't want to get up early in the morning to get the gym out of the way. A bit of a bad cycle, but hopefully with those tasks done I can focus more on more important things, like studying Korean and sleeping. Friday was a cooking class for our kinders. We made sweet potato cakes, aka mutilated sweet potato lumps with sweet cake mix crumbs and a squirt of whipped cream. Sounds appetizing, does it not?

ingredients

peeling

smashing to bits

still mashing

add some whipped cream to the mush

sprinkle cake mix

squirt of cream

fit for a queen....

Not the most appealing nor delicious recipe the kids made for cooking class. I think they are running out of ideas. Maybe I should give them some that make more sense than smashing a potato in a paper cup.

Also this Friday, and more importantly than sweet potato cakes (I know...close call)-- It was Kaitie's birthday!!

Naturally, she got the cake, birthday hat, and song that comes along with teacher's birthdays at Little America. The kids loved reminding her that in fact today was her birthday many times throughout the day. You know, just in case she forgot. She had her sister Robin skyping in as she came to school. The little ones were so excited to see her! If you come and visit, I promise you will go home with 30 new #1 fans.

For Kaitie's birthday this year I had a sneaky plot going with all of our friends here. I planned a dinner out in Hongdae on Facebook, but in reality I invited everyone to my apartment for a surprise dinner for her. The entire week I had been so excited planning and hoping I didn't accidentally send her the message about the party instead of someone else. We scheduled an appointment to decorate another cake at Darling's Cake in Hongdae, which we did previously for a picnic over the summer if you remember! Super Korean, super awesome. We arrive at Darlings and choose our icing tip, as well as any decorations for the cake. Kaitie, Tarah, and I practiced our designs, nervous about messing up this gorgeous, dent free chocolate cake in front of us. The owner of the shop (I wish I could remember her name, she's incredible) came and helped us out whenever we looked like lost puppies.

lovely birthday girl

Our materials and sustenance

Us practicing....be mature....

Tarah holding the hair back- thanks!

Kaitie killin' it

OOh the concentration

Final Product

This is such a fun thing to do here in Korea if you have a birthday, or wedding, or dentist appointment to celebrate. Just come in, choose a cake, and get going. The owner of the shop has a whole album of example cakes to use for ideas and inspiration when you begin planning your cake. Last time, our cake was a bit of a crazy mess, and it didn't make it into this album. This time, however, I think our design was clean and simple (Korean) therefore she took a picture of it for the example book! We were way too excited about this. A bit competitive aren't we. Anywhoo- after a little shopping and browsing in Hongdae, including a Macaroon-pit-stop, we headed back with the cake to get ready for the evening.

Getting back to Bucheon it was time for me to go into crazy cleaning and decorating mode. Kaitie still had no idea at this point, and I needed to make my apartment presentable for people arriving in a few hours. Putting up balloons and a Happy Birthday banner, I got it all set up as friends drifted in to surprise the birthday gal. Tom had the excellent idea of everyone hiding up in the loft and surprising Kaitie from above. I agreed and once I convinced Kaitie and Katrina that I was going to need "some more time to get ready, and they should just come to my place" I shooed everyone upstairs to await her arrival. Unfortunately, as she waited at the door for me to let her in, I told the hundreds of chatting people upstairs to be quiet and she heard me outside, thus ruining the surprise. She said she was surprised outside the door though...so slight win, I suppose. I was disappointed that it wasn't a huge shock for her as she came into the apartment, but overall the party was a success and we had SOOO much food! I want to say a huge thank you to everyone for 1. keeping quiet about the party and 2. making it such a fun evening before heading out on the town later that night! I'm so lucky to have such a great group of friends here, and now I have lunch for the week with the food that was left over...

hiding

Kind-of-surprised Kaitie

Happy Birthday, Kaitie! Hope it was a great one, I know we all had fun. Next time I'll get the surprise right. As for this week, nothing too exciting going on. We have graduation pictures on Thursday, meaning the 7-year-olds who are leaving kindergarten in March get dressed up in horrendous outfits that look like they were from some Jane Austin book and have been used since about that time period too. Always a fun day of trying to keep a straight face. xoxo Until next time.

Korean of the post:
그 착빙은 똥처럼 보이는
(keu chakbingeun ddongcheoreom boineun)
That icing looks like poop.

Sex Education Sesame Street

Anyeong, how is everyone? Winter is coming. I can feel it. Mainly because my apartment is getting colder. As much as I've looked into stopping the seasons from changing, I've found no solid results thus far. I'll be sure to keep everyone posted. Until then I will snuggle under blankets with my heat fan when necessary. As winter comes, people are trying to fit in the last few outdoor activities until it is just way to cold to enjoy anything outside. For those of you who enjoy cold weather....props....

This past week we had one of the last of the field trips until the weather turns a bit nicer. The students, let me remind you that these students are 6 to 7 years old, would be learning about sex education. Last year the field trip was canceled last minute, so a Korean teacher here took over and taught the students. Fortunately, this year we got to experience the real deal. Located on the outskirts of the Bucheon city soccer stadium, the students would get to learn about how a baby goes from a little swimmer to who they are now. As per usual, the field trip was completely in Korean. My vocabulary, unfortunately, does not cover medical terms and all of the body parts, but I heard from my co-teachers later that the students actually were very knowledgeable about the workings of the human body with regards to baby-making. Naturally, this topic was taught through puppets and videos. When the sperm and egg puppets came out I had honestly no idea what they were. I thought it was some strange representation of reproductive organs, but after further demonstrations by the teacher there, I realized the true purpose for these cute fuzzy creatures. The sperm had a perm too...pretty accurate.

After showing this process using stuffed representations, we moved into the womb room. Yes. The womb room. Crawling through a red squishy doorway, we sit in a small circular space filled with fuzzy pillows and complete with a soundtrack of a beating heart. The students closed their eyes and imagined that they were back in their mother's womb, hearing her heartbeat. Makes you wonder whether there are any subconscious memories of that time. It was then, the teacher played this video of the process from the sperm finding the egg to the baby developing. The landscape and music made you think you were watching some dramatic opera about an Earthly apocalypse. The egg itself looked like a ball of fire and the the womb like a firey landscape of death. With scary-baroque-choir music serenading you throughout this journey, as a women you felt as if you should get some sort of medal for the bravery of completing this process.

Fireball of death (aka an egg)

After the rather scarring video where the students thought they were related to seahorses, we had them put on the pregnancy vests where they can feel what mothers get to experience for 9 months. The other teachers watched holding in laughter as our students struggled to hold up the giant belly and other womanly bodily parts.

Mother Jean

mother Jenna

Then they were taught how to correctly hold a baby, supporting the head. We had several students be super careful with this baby doll while others picked it up by its limbs to see what would happen. Hopefully by the time they have children, they remember the right way to do it...

creepy mother doll...with a husky...

 

We had the usual post-field trip photo shoot and made our way back to Little America. When the Korean teachers told me about a sex-education field trip, I thought it was going to focus more on the differences between boys and girls, and go into some things that just aren't appropriate for 6- and 7-year-olds. I'm a supporter for kids learning about these things in school. I think they definitely should know what will happen to them (sounds daunting), though kindergarten is wa-hay-hayyy to early for that. Let's let them keep some innocence for now.

Fast forward through a busy, tiring, week. I feel like I'm getting worn down. A vacation is definitely becoming necessary. I'm so looking forward to a week off away from spelling tests, homework, and explaining why it is "some" cheese and not "a" cheese. 47 days.

This weekend we had the EDM (Electronic Dance Music) 5k in Ilsan. Tarah, Kaitie, Kelsey and I got all ready to run in the rain donning some glow sticks and neon facepaint all the while dancing to some beat-heavy music and not thinking about the distance of the race (which turned out to be not 5k, but it's fine...). We arrived at the Kintex mall in Ilsan to get our numbers and get painted up for the run. As we painted each others' faces we had Koreans lining up thinking we were some sort of station created by the race. I painted a few neon stripes and cat whiskers on some Koreans, most of them being kind and thanking me while others asked their friends "does it look okay? she's not doing it right" in Korean. It took some willpower to not answer in Korean that I could just take it all off...Heading off we ran 2.4 miles (okay I'll stop complaining) around a loop and along the way had some DJ booth stations to dance while running. After reaching the finish line we joined the after party where all of the EDM Runners jumped up and down to songs that all sounded the same waving glowstick-clad wrists in the air. I don't mind a little electronic music but after a while I feel like I'm sitting in the washing machine while I leave my iTunes on shuffle. We headed off in to the cold again to get ready to go out to Hongdae and meet some friends to celebrate a couple birthdays. Seems like everyone's birthday is in November here (Aka their parents had fun around Valentines Day). There are a lot of races set up through Seoul and nearby cities. I will probably wait til next spring or summer to do another one as my fingers will not appreciate it being much colder anymore. This one was mainly Korean, which I found interesting. Seems like an opportunity to paint your face and run with glow sticks would totally get foreigners to come out. Maybe they got their running in with the Color Run about a month ago. Either way, a fun way to spend a Saturday night with some lovely ladies!

As we head into the next week we have those dreaded TOSEL tests for our elementary students as well as progress reports, grades, and plans to hand in on Friday. Friday is ALSO Kaitie's birthday! Excited for adventures happening next weekend to celebrate that one. Stay warm! xoxo

Korean of the post:
아니. 얼굴에 화가 아니에요.
(ani. eolgoolae hwaga aniayo)
No. I'm not a face painter.