Dinner Party

I skyped with my friend Erin this morning. We discussed travel plans for her trip to Korea! She will arrive in Early May and stay for about 2 weeks. After we finished talking I cleaned my room and made my pretzel m&m cookies for my party. The worst part about making cookies in my little toaster oven is that it takes forever! I can only put 5-6 cookies on a pan. I think it took me about 1 1/2 hours to bake all the batches of cookies! Outrageous!

Around 4 Jacob came over, Taco Bell Party Pack in tow. He helped me move furniture a bit and then we watched The Office until people arrived. Everyone came late... First to arrive was Sung Min (Ji), his girlfriend Yeojin and their friend Mr. Cabbage. I had to run out and pick them up because they didn't know how to get to my place. We caught up with them and had about 30 minutes with them until Min Kyung and Bora arrived. After the girls arrived, we decided we'd start eating because everyone else was coming quite late.

Two other friends from Inje University, Byung Wook (Sadboy) and his girlfriend Yiseul called me and I went out again to bring them to my place. Krystle came and Tim arrived later. Tim ordered fried chicken for everyone; he was going to make chicken, but was running late and if he had cooked we wouldn't have eaten until really late. Since everyone came in waves and brought food with them, we had like 4 or 5 different "courses". Unfortunately because Yiseul lives kind of far out, she and Byung Wook had to leave after being there a short time. We played a few games and people started ducking out slowly.

It was great to see so many people I love all having a good time together. I felt truly blessed by the people I have met and friends that I have made.

Sadboy and Ji talking

Jacob and Mr. Cabbage

Tim, Krystle, Bora, MK, Yeojin, Ji, Yiseul and Sadboy enjoying ice cream

Inje Friends: Ji, me, Sadboy and Yiseul

Finally Friday

Phew. This felt like an exceptionally long week. I met with the last of my 5th graders and realized that was the final time I will meet them this year. (Next Friday is Graduation for the 6th graders, so the schedule for the day is a bit different). The highlight of the workday was probably strawberries at lunch. The 6th graders were alright for my lesson, but when it was time for the 6th period class i stood up and waited by the door for a few seconds for my COT. I noticed she was not making any attempts to leave any time soon, so I went to her desk and asked if we were going to class. Surprise, we don't have class. Thanks, that would have been nice to know. Oh well.

After school I headed to the downtown area early. I got dinner with Jacob before going to class. We had jjim dak (찜닭-the chicken stew). We walked to the building where my class is held and he waited in a cafe for me. I was a bit nervous because my "final" class of the 6 weeks was a test. I had missed the previous class because of my vacation to Malaysia. And last week there wasn't class because of the holiday. That means there was a lot of material I had to teach myself.

Class went fine. I kept expecting a test all class period. Finally after our break I asked the aide if there would be a test and he looked puzzled and said no. Then, the teacher made an announcement saying that we would all be able to advance to level 2B if we so wished. Success! On to the next level!

After class, I met up with Jacob again and we got Red Velvet Cake again at the Swedish bakery. It is so delicious! We headed back and went our separate ways for the night.

Pick-Up Game Day

Classes went alright. I haven't seen my 5th graders in a long time (since middle/end of December)! The lesson was easy; just review, a song and pictionary or charades (I let each class choose).

After I was done teaching, I used the extra planning time to study Korean since my plans are all done for the rest of the year. When school was done, I went to the post office and mailed some letters. I'm proud to say I talked to the clerk in Korean. I noticed a sign that looked like it was showing the post office is moving and asked about it. I returned home and reheated the bulgogi from the other night, watched tv and then got ready for soccer.

I left home and got to the elevator before realizing I didn't have my jacket. Crazy. I went back and got it and went to the subway. I arrived and was going to wait for Sammy and Jacob, but John arrived and it was getting close to the time to show up so I walked with him to the fields. My friend Bora wasn't able to make it to this pick-up game and we were worried about not having the 2nd girl, but it wasn't a problem because the team we were scrimmaging against also only had one girl. The rest of our team trickled in slowly and then we started. We started out quite well; at the end of the first 25 minute half we were up 6-2. But we fell apart a bit in the 2nd half. They almost caught up to us and the game ended 6-5. I actually had a few good saves in goal, so that was nice. Guess I'm lucky that we play on Sundays and I have a turn in there for practice.

Dinner Date with Mina

School went alright. I had some classes do a great job with the preposition lesson and some that were so quiet and unresponsive we didn't even get to finish everything. I was just standing there asking the question over and over while crickets chirped in the background... The last class was my favorite class, and apparently it was their last class with us, so my COT told me 10 minutes before class that we wouldn't be doing my lesson, but rather they'd watch the ending to a movie. Oh, okay.

After school I did a few errands and then I met up with my friend Mina for dinner near City Hall. She and I met quite randomly. Back in August during the IKAA Gathering, my adoptee friend Ginger came to Seoul on her way to the US for her vacation. She did the Inje program a year after me and had gotten in touch with me through her Uncle who I met in 2009 on the GOA'L Homecoming Trip. One of her fellow participants, Tommy, was also at the Gathering so the 3 of us were meeting up for dinner. Ginger knew that her friend Mina from Inje now lived in Seoul and invited her because she knew Ginger and Tommy. So, this is how I met Mina. While we were chatting that night, I found out that her (at the time) boyfriend was a good friend of mine from Inje! (They broke up a few months ago though.) Anyway, she and I had tried to meet up over the past few months, but things fell through. She and I met and we went to a restaurant very close to where I was waiting for her. We had spicy pork, steamed pork and dwenjang jjigae (a soybean paste stew). It was pretty good. We had a good time catching up and I hope we will be able to connect again.

COLD Tuesday

I know I shouldn't complain about the weather; we're still hovering around the upper 20's and low 30's, but it's still quite cold-especially with that wind!

Anyway, at school, I guess some of the 6th graders were complaining that the review lesson was too easy and it was boring. The last class of the day was for the next period so I prepared a lesson on prepositions. They liked it and did well.

After school I met Jacob near Sangsu station and we walked to the GOA'L office to talk to John to get information about taxes. He gave us Girl Scout Cookies (YES!) and a booklet about information on living in Korea. We talked about our upcoming soccer league. Oh yea, we joined a Thursday night league! So in addition to our Sundays for fun, we're officially a team now. Except we needed a second girl for our team. I posted something asking if any friends in Seoul wanted to join and on Sunday, my friend Bora replied saying she was interested! I was so surprised because she is Korean, Korean. And, most Korean girls don't do sports. Anyway, I was super excited because we had our second girl for our team! I'm really looking forward to this. It's been awhile since I've played competitively on a team for a "season".

Jacob and I went to Burger B for dinner and then went to a cafe called Coco Bruni. It looks super fancy (it is a chain) but it actually wasn't that much more expensive than Starbucks or any other coffee shop really. We ordered a blueberry cheesecake and it was really good. We started talking about cheesecake and I figured I could probably bake a cheesecake at some point. We were both tired, so we split pretty early.

I came home and tidied my room a bit. I worked out a little bit too.

Not such a Miserable Monday

Today wasn't too bad. I did a review on past tense and made BINGO cards for them to play BINGO. But...my 6th graders didn't like BINGO as much as my Winter Camp kids did unfortunately.

After school I met Jacob at Emart and we got more veggies (mushroom and cabbage) to add to the bulgogi I was making for dinner. As a surprise, he brought over Auntie Anne's Pretzels for me! (I had told him school lunch wasn't very good; one thing had crab meat in it and the main dish was octopus/squid...) We had the snack and then watched The Office until we got hungry. I felt bad because I figured it would only take me about 30 minutes to make dinner, but it ended up being about 45-1 hour because I was chopping so many veggies and cooking those before I could cook the meat. At least we were eating healthy. I'm the daughter of a nutritionist for sure! :)

Dinner is served!

Soccer and Church

I had a relaxing morning. I was going to make cookies, but again, since soccer has been moved up to 4-6 for the time being, it cuts into my baking time a little (if I don't get up and get moving right away, that is). I reheated a meatball for lunch and watched a little bit of TV on my computer before heading to Hapjeong to meet Jacob. We traveled from Hapjeong to Yongsan station together.

We waited for our friends to arrive and warmed up a bit. Eirik, one of the other adoptees coaches a high school team, so he has been inviting them to come and play against us. A lot of the guys have stopped coming in the colder weather and it's been getting a bit dull playing 3 v. 3 and against same people. They were okay, not stellar, but it was still something nice for a change. They had 6 and we had 7, so we had one sub.

Because soccer was changed from 4-6, I was able to stay and play the whole 2 hours. That made me pretty happy. Jacob and I went to church together. After church we went to Noodle Box for dinner.

We're wearing the pennies

Looks like Jacob just let a goal in

Johan about to score on the far top corner