Random observation of the day:
I don't know why, but a lot of the boy students I teach have been coming to school with painted fingernails lately. I asked one boy with blue fingernails about it, but he wouldn't answer me...

I love the spring! This weather makes me happy:) It was so nice walking around outside this weekend.
So I had my first Korean bowling experience friday. Wasn't all that different really. I went with Michael and Natalia. The bowling alley was 2 floors. There were only a few lanes on each floor. The first floor was full so they took us up to the 2nd floor, so we had the whole thing to ourselves for several games. It was really cheap to bowl. It was like 30,000 won ($30ish) for the 3 of us to play 4 games. We were all pretty bad...no one broke 100, but it was fun.
Saturday was the start of Korean class again. We have a new teacher. She seems like she's gonna be a little tougher, but she's nice and seems like a good teacher. After class we went to a cherry blossom festival thing. I kind of expected there to be more to it than there was, but it was pretty and we got some good pictures out of it.

That night we went to Itaewon to do some shopping. We decided to attempt to find our ice cream fondue again. Third times the charm! We were sooooo excited!
Doesn't it look yummy? That's probably because it was! It came with fruit, pieces of cake, little balls of ice cream, and of course the chocolate.
Sunday was obviously Easter. I went to church, then there was a dinner after the service. Everything was good:)
School wasn't bad today, at least for a monday. Seems like half the kids have chicken pox...well like 3 or 4 of them do anyway.
hmmm ok well i think that's all i've got...
hope you all had a very Happy Easter!

I can't believe its almost Easter! It seems like it was Christmas just a few weeks ago. I've been in Korea a little over 6 months now, which seems really crazy. Anyway, even though its been a little while, I dont think I've let you guys miss much. Weather's been slightly on the warmer side lately so thats good:) Natalia is coming to the end of her contract in just a few weeks so the 3 of us went out for dinner and then met up with some Korean friends Friday, so that was fun. Saturday I was supposed to go with Abby, Kristina, and a few other people to see the cherry blossoms, but after changing our minds a few times and going to the wrong subway stop we ended up in Namdaemun. First we got to see the changing of the guard ceremony at a palace. We saw this really big drum (pictures later) so of course we wanted to hit it. We were very disappointed when we saw the Please Do Not Touch Drum Please sign:( Then all these people start gathering around and we can tell something's about to happen so we stayed to watch. This person comes up to Abby and asks her if she wants to hit the drum for the ceremony and being the good friend she is, she asked if me and Kristina could hit the drum too. They said that we could each hit the drum one time. They told us to use most powerful force. It was a little scary with all the people watching, but it was fun:) So then there was a big parade and a little ceremony thing. They also had a little table set up where they were letting people try on hanbok for free, so of course we did that too. Then we went shopping. In Namdaemun a lot of the shopping is just digging through piles of clothes. You can get stuff for really cheap. We also went to Forever 21:) then Bennigans for dinner. It was a fun day:) Sunday, I went to church then sam gyup sal for dinner. We made a second attempt at getting the ice cream fondue for dessert, but they said they didn't have it again:( ...and then the weekend was over. They go by too fast. ok, time for class! Miss you guys! Wish I could be home for Easter!

So one of my students today said to me, "Teacher! Your voice is much louder this year than it was last year!" haha I dunno if it's true or not, but it made me laugh a little bit:)
Another student story (not a funny one):
Some of my classes have to write in diaries that they turn into me every day. One girl, who I think is actually one of my prettiest students, wrote about how ugly she thinks she is because her skin is dark and her nose is round. She said she was going to get plastic surgery on her nose when she gets older. I thought it was really sad:(
I don't know if you guys have noticed but I added a Korean word of the day thing to my blog. I'm not too crazy about the words it picks, but I though you guys could learn some Korean with me! So maybe I'll try to throw in some Korean every time I post on here. Korean of the day: 코피 pronounced Ko Pee. It means bloody nose (Ko=nose, Pee=blood). I've had a couple of kids with bloody noses since I have learned this, one this week actually. The kids were impressed that I new how to say this:)
By the way, its my mommy's birthday tomorrow. I know somebody wants to buy her a plane ticket to Korea so she can visit me! Miss u mommyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!

It seems like every time I write a blog I end up having to write it twice. grrr Sorry guys, I've been really busy. At school there is like no time to breathe, and when I'm not at school and I have free time, writing a blog isn't usually at the top of my to-do list.
Anyway, like I said, school has been really crazy. We have almost no free time now. Monday's and Tuesday's are my best days. The week is just downhill after that. The kids aren't bad. There are just so many of them now and a lot of them don't know much english. The little bit of Korean I've learned has helped some. You have to be careful using it though cause they freak out when you speak Korean and they start trying to talk to you. Oh, kinda funny side note story... One of the new upper level kids got to class early one day. I was at my desk doing something and he was reading. He had a question so he said in the most serious, polite voice, "Excuse me sir, what is this word?" I thought it was pretty funny. I didn't laugh though, and I probably should have corrected him, but I couldn't. haha:) Ok, well that's enough about school.
Last Saturday I went to Lotte World with Michael, Kristina, and Shawn.

Lotte World is an amusement park that is half inside and half outside. We were excited about not having to freeze to death, but it wasn't too, too cold. The lines were really long though, much longer than at Everland. Everland was much better overall actually, but we still had fun. We didn't ride many rides, only one that was kinda scary. They had balloons that went around the whole indoor area. That was pretty cool. After we got tired of waiting in long lines to ride rides, we went to the arcade to play games and then we took pictures at the photo booth. Korean photo booths are so much better. They're also pretty stressful. You get to decorate your pictures, but it gives you a time limit, so if you don't know what you're doing you're in trouble!
Sunday after church we went shopping around Bucheon Station and then met our friend Janice for Shabu Shabu. Very yummy:)

After dinner, I went to meet Abby's new dog, Honey. He's very cute:) Makes me want a pet. I'm thinking maybe a hermit crab? Honey also got to meet Peanut. They got along pretty well. Then we went to Baskin Robbins for ice cream. We wanted to get the ice cream fondue thing, but they didn't have it so we had to settle for normal ice cream:( Oh, well. So that was pretty much my weekend.
This week, not too much exciting. I did get to make St. Patricks day hats with the kids. When I say I got to make them with the kids, what I mean is, they got to color them, and I got to do everything else. They were much more complicated to make than you might think.
And that brings us to this weekend. Last night I went to see a movie with Abby and today I slept in and other than a trip to Homeplus, a little cleaning, and some laundry, I haven't done much. The weather is sooo nice here now. It's finally getting in the upper 50s to 60. Spring! Yay!! I love it!

This week hasn't been as bad as I thought... The morning schedule is kind of temporary. I think they're trying to get the kids used to coming here before we go into having normal classes with them. So I don't have much to do then. I have a few new classes in the afternoon, but a couple of them dont start until next week so I've had a break there too. Next week is not going to be as fun. Oh, but guess what! Pre-k kids are gone! Well, they aren't gone, but I dont have to teach them anymore! Yay! In other news, it snowed some yesterday. Not nearly as much as you guys got back home. I'm so jealous! So, I went to Outback last night with Abby and Kristina. The food was really good, but just couldnt eat it all, so we asked for to-go boxes. They took our food, brought it back in boxes along with 2 of the small loaves of bread for each of us! I was pretty excited:-) Oh, I forgot to tell you guys, I have a Korean name now...sorta. 돌벽 (Dolbyeok??) It means Stonewall. Don't ask. Ok, thats all for now.

I know, I know its been forever

My mother brought it to my attention that I have not posted in quite a while. I didn't realize how long it had been! Just haven't had a whole lot to write about and not much motivation to do it i guess.
Anyway, last saturday was the kindergarten graduation. Can't tell you how thrilled I was to get to go to school on saturday. I got to lead the kids in a song in sign language. I didn't really teach them the song. I think they got most of the signs from the internet. Then when they found out my minor was ASL they asked me to make sure it was right and to lead the song for graduation. This was like 2 days before they were supposed to perform it so I didn't change much. Its not like anybody would know if it was wrong. It went pretty well I think. I wish I had gotten some pictures from graduation, but I didn't. So the rest of the weekend I was pretty lazy. Went to Rhythm and Booze with Kristina, Abby, and Michael saturday night, but not much else.

This week has been really long and kinda boring. We had 3 age groups of morning kids. I don't teach the youngest group (amber) at all. I have a few classes with the middle group (jade). The oldest group (ruby) graduated so they come in the afternoon now instead. Some days I didn't even have class until 2:00 even though I had to be at school at 9:30. Not having anything to do made me feel really tired. Thursday and Friday we didn't have morning classes at all. It was parent orientation for the new semester. Thursday was orientation for the new kids and parents. Friday was for parents and kids that are returning. We have a lot of new kids coming in next week. Its gonna be scary. We don't even know our schedule for the morning kids. We know our schedule for afternoon, but they haven't told us what we're teaching or anything yet. So its gonna be fun. I'm going to have like no free time either. Ok, I'm starting to get stressed so lets move on to the weekend.
Friday we had Monopoly night at Kristina's. I think I mentioned before that Abby bought us Monopoly for Christmas, but it was all in Korean. We used Kristina's mom as a translator. It was credit card Monopoly too so that made things interesting. It was fun. Long, a bit heated at times, but fun:) Michael ended up winning the game. Pretty sure he cheated though...
Today I went to Korean class. We're starting to get more into conversational stuff. I now have 40+ stickers! Yay! After class, Michael and I went on a search for a Papa Johns cause I was pretty sure I had seen one and I thought I could find it...and guess what! I did! I'm getting much better at the whole directions thing. The pizza was delicious too:)

The weather was really nice today. It was sunny and not cold at all. We walked all the way back to the subway station, which is not a short walk, stopping to play on the swings at a playground on the way. I could get used to this weather, but it looks like its gonna be getting cold again tomorrow. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted!