A new blog post...finally :D

Ok, so I haven't posted on here in a long time, but I thought that I should, just in case anyone still checks up on it. Things here in Korea have been pretty decent. Lately the wind has been bitterly cold, but there's still no snow on the ground. Apparently we just don't get that much of it here.

I decided that I would make a couple of paper mache masks with a couple of my students, and though the balloons we used to do it were rather small, they still turned out ok :) which makes me very happy. The girls had fun, the masks turned out moderately well, and they learned some English, so it's good :) I'm going to post a picture here somewhere of them wearing them. Dayna is a chipmunk on the left, and Chris is a mouse on the right. This picture makes them look a little crazy...actually, Chris's looks a little crazy anyway...but that's the way they wanted them to be, so who was I to say any different? :) Anyway, they want to try again, so this next time I'm going to find bigger balloons. Dayna wants to make a yellow Power Ranger mask, and Chris wants to make a Barbie mask... I feel moderately confident that we can pull off Dayna's idea, but the Barbie one seems a little bit more far fetched. Oh well, whatever :) It'll still be fun making them.

Being in YeongJu again

So Seoul was a lot of fun to visit. I definitely feel the lack of bookstores with books in English here in YeongJu, but Seoul has bookstores with a decent supply of them. I didn't buy any, but I was tempted on a few. As it is, I'm borrowing Josh's book about this agnostic that decides to try to strictly follow the Bible for a year and see if he's convinced by the whole experience. He makes it pretty funny, and visits the Amish, a creationist museum, and a bunch of other places that are important to different groups of Christians. So far I'm enjoying it very much. But to get back to the topic at hand, while we were in Seoul, Jennifer, Kirsty, Josh and I ate lunch, visited a Kimchi museum, a big market, Namson (spelling?) Tower, ate dinner, and Kirsty, Josh and I also stopped in at a Noribong karaoke place and sang songs for a couple hours. It was lots of fun, but terribly humid. Bleh. For pictures, please see my Facebook photo album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2220381&id=27222544&l=8cec384031.

Work is still good, and so is the food around here. Josh and I made dinner tonight out of some odd looking mushrooms I bought from the market (don't worry, I haven't died yet...), green onions, garlic, kimchi, and some sausage things stuffed with ground up organs and noodles. That sounds gross, but don't be deceived. :) 'Twas scrumptious, mmmm. This past week our middle school students were taking tests, so the schedule at English Island was all messed up, and we all taught classes that we normally don't. I think I'll like going back to my regular classes. One point of worry is that my kindergarteners have a midterm coming up. Yikes! I hope they do well.Anyway, that's about all I have to say. Ok.

Going to Seoul tomorrow

Yes, that's right :D I am going to Seoul tomorrow. I should actually say we, since it's me, Josh, and Kirsty (my Scottish friend) going to meet up with Jennifer there. She (Jenn) actually lives in Incheon, but it's fairly close to Seoul, I believe. The airport is technically in her town. Anyhoo, we are all going to be tourists tomorrow, and it should be lots of fun. Jenn talked about maybe going to a Kim chi museum, and there's talk of going to a big market they have over there, and a restaurant or two, among other things. :) Should be good.

School has also been going well. I still make many mistakes, but they're all fairly easily fixed, and I have a lot of flexibility in the classroom. They provide the material, and in that the topics and things, which takes out a lot of the planning that I'd have to do, but I still get to decide what activities to do for the most part. Recently my kindergarten class has been going over the different articles of clothing. I enlarged a bunch of pictures from the book and copied them off, then cut them out and stuck them on different places on the board. There was also a boy head and a girl head. Most of the time I would put a blouse and skirt or something like that on the girl head Julie, and I'd ask, "What is Julie wearing?" Then we all say together, "Julie is wearing a blouse and a skirt". One time, though, I put a dress on the boy head, Mike, and all the kids giggled and snickered and shouted, "No, teacher! Ha ha ha! Teacher, no!" Then I asked what Mike was wearing, and they all laughingly had to say, "Mike is wearing ha ha ha a dress!" Haha :) I love my job :) My school is a private one, and the kindergarten portion is the most popular part, and thus brings in the largest portion of the funds for the school. The importance of making the class a lot of fun is therefore frequently mentioned to me. In my Kinder Times class (don't let the title fool you...they are not as young as my kindergartners, and they actually know a fair amount of vocabulary) I taught them how to play Simon says, which turned out to be a huge, hilarious hit. The first day when they all did things that Simon didn't say, they all looked shocked. The same kids would always get out, especially one girl in particular. The students that weren't fooled would laugh and shout, "Teacher, me no! Me no!" By now they're getting better, and a little harder to trick. I still get them when I say things like, "Simon says touch your nose", but I touch my ears instead. Then I point to the ones that are touching their ears and say, "Nose???" and they collectively cry out, "Aaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!" Hilarious. :)

Anyway, I need to get up in the morning. I'll let you all know how Seoul is soon. :) Hurrah! :D

Daegu

Hello again :) I thought I'd get on here, give an update, post a few pictures, etc. We have here a picture of one of a kid wearing my funny glasses, and also a picture of the city where I live. The city looks terribly busy in that picture, and sometimes it is fairly busy, but you have to remember that we are in downtown, and that Yeong-Ju really isn't that enormous. Finally, there's a picture of me. I think I look kindof not so awesome in this particular picture, but really...does a person have to look awesome all the time? I think not...I probably wouldn't accomplish that goal even with the actual effort it would take to try to do that. And besides, it's my blog :)

Josh took me to church in Daegu today. It was fun being able to compare it to my now hometown, eat a good meal, and hear a good message. Josh and I agree that the pastor kindof reminds a person of Don Jameson. Anyway, we decided to go to a park after the service, and this guy saw us and started talking to us since we're Americans and he'd lived in America for a while. Apparently this happened the last time Josh went to this park, so it is my assumption that we will never actually get to see the rest of the park ;) Someone will always come up and strike up a conversation. That happens fairly frequently on at least some level. People are always shouting "hello!" to us and that sort of thing.

Anyhoo, it's late, and I have school in the morning, but, as always, I'll post more later. Ta ta!

First days in Yeong-Ju

This picture with the food is what we ate for dinner the other day. The pile of stuff at the bottom is kimchi. That's pickeled spicy cabbage. I can't say that I'm a fan yet, but I've heard from most people that it grows on you, so we'll see. The stuff on skewers is meat and something else. Maybe something made from rice? The red sauce is spicy and sweet, and very delicious :) Yum.

Hello :) I arrived safely in Korea, hurrah! I was nervous about feeling isolated and lonely here since I don't know the language, but so far I absolutely love it! Everyone is very kind and welcoming and friendly here, the food is delicious (if somewhat spicy), and my apartment would be perfect were it not for the shoddy flooring job. But that's ok :) Here are a few pictures from my stay here so far. The one with the bed is of my bedroom. I have a TV and DVD player. The bed is a little hard, but comfy enough. The picture after that is of my kitchen. On the left you also see my washing machine, which has a hose that isn't long enough to reach the water supply in the bathroom. I'll fix it fairly soon, probably. :)

Anyhoo, I need to go to the bank before I head off to the school, but I hope everyone back at home is doing well. I'll post again soon, hopefully. My internet is supposed to be connected sometime this week, so that'll make this whole long distance communication thing a little bit easier. :)

Traveling to Korea fairly soon

So I'm going to Korea for a year, and I decided that Margaret was pretty smart to revive the blog that she had...only I didn't want to use that one, so I created a new one :) I'll try to post pictures on here, let people know what I'm up to on a fairly regular basis, and who knows what else. My address abroad will be as follows:

Yeong-Ju 1 Dong 531-3

Yeong-Ju City, Kyung-Buk

750-010 , South Korea

I don't know my phone number yet, but I'm sure everyone will be hearing from me when I know it. I'll be keeping up on Facebook, of course, so it'll practically be like I'm in Yakima anyway :)