Too Easy Tuesday

Work was exceptionally easy today. I thought I was going to be helping my 4th grade COT again with a class, but she said she was okay after all. That meant...deskwarming all day. It wasn't too bad because I was able to catch up on some things and do some research and planning. I also decluttered my desk as it's quite possible I'll have to be leaving my small office and moving back upstairs to the subject teachers office. I'm quite sad about that-it was very comfortable being in the small office with Sophie. I'm going to remain hopeful and keep my fingers crossed I can stay here! By the end of the week I'll know though.

After work I thought we were having a end of the year staff dinner, and wondered why there wasn't one last year. Turns out it was a retirement dinner for 3 teachers. It was held at "The Buffet", in the NC Department Store. I guess it must be a chain because I went to one in Busan during my Inje days. Everything seemed about the same (from what I remember from 4 years ago!) First there was a lot of talking-we watched a powerpoint of well-wishes from the teachers to the retirees and then speeches, singing and cake cutting. Finally, it was time to eat. Dinner was great! I ate so much food and dessert, yum. Sophie teacher and I had planned to leave a little bit early, but that didn't really turn out-we took so long eating and then there was another kind of gift-giving and speech making for the teachers leaving our school. Then we all held hands and sang a common farewell song.

I walked home from the dinner; it wasn't too far from school and school is close to my place of course. And I definitely needed to burn off dinner. It was already around 8:30 so I resigned myself to just taking an extra long walk and not going for my run. Instead I explored an area to the left of me and wandered down the side streets finding a few small marts/grocery stores. It's good to know in case I need something and Emart is closed on a Sunday.

When I returned home from my extended walk, I just relaxed a little and worked on packing for my trip.

Retirement dinner

Principal popping champagne 

Round one....

Dessert!

Mundane Monday

Nothing too special about today. I helped my 4th grade COT with 3 classes. We were supposed to have a staff meeting, but then they cancelled it after we sat around for 10 minutes waiting for other teachers to come. That meant an earlier dismissal. :)

I chatted a bit with my friend Van, in Vietnam. She is going to prepare a SIM card for me so I will be able to have data for my phone while in Vietnam. I'm so very thankful for her help and am excited to see her after 5 years. Who'da thunk?

I went to Emart to get some groceries and gave in to my strong craving for pizza by picking up a slice from the pizza corner in the grocery store. I also grabbed a salad. At home I had dinner and watched Doctor Who. The rest of the evening was pretty laid back-some cleaning, a workout and packing/preparing for my trip.

COLD Sunday

Today was so, so cold! I got up and headed to church, all bundled up. After mass, I did my normal routine and walked to Casablanca for a sandwich. I took my sandwich home and watched some TV.

Then it was time for my normal walk to soccer. Not many people showed up-from our original team it was John, Stefano and me. One of Eirik's friends joined us, another guy from Norway. We played with the high school boys and the older Koreans that joined last week as well. It was so cold it was hard to run around. Also, I had spilled some water on the bench at one point and the water turned to ice!

Pop Up Event with Dong Gun

In the morning I skyped with Grandpa. We had a relatively short talking time compared to normal, but it was still good to see him and chat with him. After we finished talking, I called up my Mom. We talked for awhile and she officially booked her ticket!

After we finished talking, I baked a few cookies to give to Dong Gun. Last week we had talked about what we liked doing and I mentioned my cookie baking love. I got ready for our dinner date and then was off to Itaewon. Just before I arrived, he messaged me and mentioned that there were a lot of foreigners at the station. Welcome to Itaewon! We walked to the little bar/restaurant the Pop Up event was being held at. The woman checking people in was a co-owner (? I think) at Left Coast Burgers; anyway, she recognized me and was very friendly. We had to sit at a low table; it was more like a coffee table so it was a little bit awkward but in a corner so it was quieter. First we had a rice bowl with meat and salsa. Next was a bbq sandwich with pulled pork and fried jalapenos. That was delicious! The final dish was a bowl of soup with homemade taquitos, also quite tasty. I liked that everything came out slowly-I think we were there for about an hour and a half to get the 3 dishes. At the end, we were asked if another couple could join our low table as there weren't enough seats anywhere else. So the last 5-10 minutes was a little bit awkward for Dong Gun and me to talk freely.

We left the pop up event and strolled around Itaewon and then headed to Noksapyeong and walked around there, Kyeongridan and Haebangchon. We found a makgoli place that looked really nice, but there were no seats available. In the end we went to a different upscale bar/restaurant and got ciders. It was a lot of fun talking and we almost lost track of time. We ended up running to the subway station; the whole time I didn't think we would make it before they stopped running. When we arrived at the station we saw the screen and the train was still arriving so we ran down, down (Noksapyeong Station is really far underground!) and I made it just in time. Dong Gun asked me to let him know when I got home and unfortunately for him the subways stopped running while he was getting home and he had to take a taxi partway.

One of the three dishes served at the pop up, bbq pulled pork sandwich

DongGun and me

TGIF

For some reason this week seemed really long. I'm not sure why because the workload was a little bit less than normal. It seemed like each day I didn't know which day it was because most of my class schedules weren't normal.

After work I stopped at the post office and then headed to Yeoido. I took the bus there and walked along the Han River and got to see the sky change colors as the sun set. It was really beautiful. It was quite cold, but worth it. Then I walked to IFC Mall and did some shopping. Next it was time to find some dinner. I went to Charles (Korean pronunciation Chal-su) Kimbap. It's been a loooong time since I've had this brand kimbap. They are a little bit more pricey than normal kimbap shops, but it's because the kimbap is so big and stuffed with a ton of delicious smokey bulgogi meat! I ordered it to go and took the bus back home.

At home, I ate half of the kimbap and watched some Doctor Who. I also did some planning because my Mom will be coming in 2 months! I wanted to draft up some ideas of what to do while she is here. The activities and ideas are coming along nicely and I think she will have a great time!

Yeoido

Yeoido Sunset

Yeoido

Really liked this one

Giant kimbap!

Dinner with my COTs

After work I went to dinner with two of my COT's; Eunsook (my "life" coteacher-the one who helped me with all aspects of home and school) and Sophie. Eunsook's 5 years at Nokbun are up and she will be moving to a new school for the next school year (which starts March 2nd). And like I mentioned before, Sophie will be moving to teach middle school English. Lots of change going on with my COTs so there is the big unknown for the start of the new year.

Anyway, we went to a bibimbap restaurant in front of my building for dinner. I hadn't been there in a long time, but I think the owner recognized me. I had chatted with him a few times last spring when I used to go there more often. After we finished dinner we went to a coffee shop and chatted a little bit more there.

At home I took a short break and then forced myself out for my run. At first I thought I would just go for a walk, but once I was out I figured I might as well run. I wasn't quite motivated enough to run 4 miles so I decided that I would try and do some interval training. Instead of my regular run I did 2 miles of jogging and sprinting. After my run I returned home and watched some Doctor Who.

My Mom contacted me and we worked out dates for her upcoming visit! I'm so excited for her to come.

Normal Wednesday

Today was a pretty regular Wednesday. After work I came home and had my leftover casserole instead of going downtown straight away. It was nice to have a little bit of down time at home.

Class had its ups and downs. The first grammar point I thought, "ok, it's not too bad, I understand" after looking it up on my phone real quick. I was able to do the fill in the blank answers (with the provided verb) but then it came to the open-ended questions and we had to form our own answers and I was stuck and lost. It felt so overwhelming to me and I felt very frustrated. As usual, I resolved to do more studying outside of class so I'm prepared for class, but we'll see how the week progresses.