Eight Years without Dad

Today the high schoolers were taking their college entrance examinations so all of Korea was on standby to work around their test schedule. Flight schedules were changed so no planes took off during the listening part of the exam and companies had a delayed start time, which included me, to avoid rush-hour traffic on the freeway so students could make it to their testing centers on time.  I didn’t have to go to school until 9:30 which was nice so I got to talk to my Mom and Martin on the 8^th anniversary of Dad’s passing. The only sad thing is knowing that there are always high numbers of suicides after the test because of the pressure students felt after taking the test or if they felt they did poorly on them. They are trying to get into one of the top 3 universities in Korea, known as “SKY” (Seoul National University, Korea University and Yonsei University).

I had a nice easy day with my 5^th graders today. Our schedule was a little bit different because we came to school an hour later. Other than that, nothing too exciting.

After school I just took a rest and later in the evening Jacob came over and brought dinner. We talked and I showed him the video/pictures of the family and Dad. We also talked about taking a trip together in January when I have my winter break.

100 Day

In Korea, 100 days are a special milestone: they celebrate 100 days of birth for babies and couples celebrate their 100 days of dating. Today marks my 100 days of being in Korea.

Nothing too special happened at school-more classes with the KPOP song, making more girls happy. I figured next chapter I'll have to figure out how to do something with computer games to make the boys happy. We also played a charades game using our key expressions and my co teacher got into it way more than the students. They asked 'how can I do this?!' And instead of whispering a suggestion to them, she started acting everything out...

After school I had a snack and then headed to Sinchon to meet Jacob and John. We went to Yonsei University to play soccer on the fields there. I hadn't been there since the tournament. We were there for about 1 1/2 hrs kicking the ball around.

I headed home and made more triangle kimbap for dinner. One was filled with tuna, kimchi and cheese. The other was the leftover meat cut up with bell pepper and mushroom. I had dinner and watched some tv.

Happy Birthday Aunt Ruth! And Cooking Day

Happy Birthday to my Great Aunt Ruth! It's actually on the 4th, but it was the 4th in the US today. In the morning I was able to skype with my Aunt Ruth, Mike, Grandpa, Martin and Mom. It was really special to me to tallk and see Aunt Ruth.

Today my 6th grade girls loved me, the boys not so much...instead of doing an English song I did a Korean pop song and our task was to translate the song (a few stanzas) into English. The girls almost died when they realized it was their favorite group, INFINITE. Once I asked one class who was they most handsome and they went said 'aaaaaye!!!!' Which is like hey, you're crazy/that's crazy... It was really funny-obviously it was a 'dumb' question! They can't pick just one member! And I had one boy change the lyrics and write PC room (a computer 'store' you can go and play computer games for a little bit of money) and 'my ID'-which was funny and clever but also not really appropriate behavior. I should explain the song--the line was "I'm going to you please wait a little for me" was turned into "I'm going to the PC room" and then "if it's not you I can't go on" was turned into "without my ID I can't go on'.

After school I relaxed a bit and got a few more groceries and then prepared dinner. Jacob and I were going to go out for dinner but since I had bought meat on Sunday I wanted to use it all up. Jacob came over, we ate and then we went for coffee.

Best Purchase Ever!

Today my 4th period class was cancelled because they had a special lecture of some sort. It was a nice surprise to only have 3 periods to teach.

After school I came home and ate my leftovers. I went to meet Kwang Min in Hapjeong to try and work out our trip to Yeosu. It was a bit too complicated so we decided we will postpone it for now. I stopped at the Daiso to look for a nice travel tea mug and a container to mix batter with my crazy powerful beaters. I was not successful on the tea mug end but did find a good container. I also found a container to make triangle shaped kimbap. I came home and watched some tv shows.

Restful Day and soccer

I woke up and had a skype session with Grandpa, Mom and Martin. It was good seeing them and talking with them. After we made plans to skype on the 4th for Aunt Ruth's 97th birthday. :)

After skyping I just relaxed at home, finally heading to Emart in the early afternoon to grab a few groceries. I came home and made lunch--a stirfry with meat from the grocery store, chicken nuggets and mandu.

Then I went off to soccer. I thought I would walk to the World Cup Stadium again. It took a little under an hour. I was a bit early so I watched the kiddos who practice before us. I also watched a dad help his daughter learn how to ride a bike on her own-it was really sweet.

Finally Jacob arrived so we passed the ball around until everyone else arrived. Well, soccer was awesome this week. I played really well and even got a goal! I was so happy-first one of this 'season' for me. I also even did ok in goal too.

Then it was off to church. Father Bernard had mass this week. After church I came home.

Full Day

I met Jacob in Hongdae for brunch. We went to a place called Traveler's Cafe. It was pretty good. I ordered Strawberry and Banana Pancakes with a side order of bacon. They actually made some kind of mistake and brought another side plate of pancakes instead of bacon, haha. So, Jacob said something to the waitress and they fixed it. A little bit later, the chef came out and gave us a Halloween themed sucker they were selling and apologized for making a mistake.

After brunch we went to a mall/department store in the area that he tutors. There were 5 huge buildings, each over 8 floors and all connected to each other. Only the first 2 were all the way full. We went into the other 3 and only 1 or 2 floors had shops/stalls on them; that was a little disappointing. I found a nice red/burgundy colored dress shirt.

When we finished shopping, Jacob contacted his tutor family and they had us over to play with their kids. They are the family I met with Ji in the hospital a few weeks ago. The girls are so adorable. We played some and then they asked if we wanted Korean food or pizza and fried chicken. We said whatever was easier and the dad answered "pizza and fried chicken". So he ran out to get some food and we had dinner with them. After dinner, we played a little bit more and then took off.

I came home and it took me almost an hour and 45 minutes to get from door to door.  Ugh, soo far away--which is sad because Ji lives in that neighborhood too. I watched some more shows on Netflix and got to chat with Jenny a little. I haven't talked to her in a loooong time, so it was good that we got a chance to catch up some. She is really busy with school.

My pancakes!

In the mall...

The middle child

The youngest with her Dad

Jayden, Jacob's student

The littlest again

First day of November

I can't believe it's already November. It seems like it was just unbelievably hot August in some ways.

I had a lot of fun with my 5th graders today. Because of the holiday a few weeks ago, our schedule has been off and my Friday classes were ahead one lesson than the Thursday classes. So, we played games. I had them do pictionary and charades, using the key sentences we have been learning. They really enjoyed it.

After school I went to Hongdae to meet Kwang Min for dinner. I was still not feeling the greatest, and I wanted some soup or something light for dinner. We ended up going to a mandu restaurant that had "kalguk su" which is a noodle soup and it had mandu in it. After dinner, we went to a little ice cream shop cafe that had ice cream on a popsicle stick. I got cookies and cream flavor-it was really good. They had some interesting flavors. I came home after ice cream and then I watched some shows on Netflix.

He was drawing "My grandma is a farmer"

The hair was the addition when I said "Grandma--halmoni" to him, haha!

One of my favorite students--she drew me for the sentence "She teaches children"