2011년 8월 30일 화요일

Dear Jess, Welcome to Art Day

There is one day left of the eighth month of the year two thousand and eleven. It's blowing my mind. We have a field trip tomorrow to a grape farm. I'm sure it will be super fun.

Last weekend was pretty fun. Nothing out of the ordinary, just continuing enjoying the summer weather post humidity and typhoon season and exploring new bars and restaurants. Lots of good conversations with great friends.

Jessica Sender asked me to update my blog more. I informed her that I would try. So, in honor of that awesome gchat, here are two videos I took of Robot Class on Art day. Art day is Tuesday, right before lunch. We alternate weeks of drawing or crafts. Last week, the week in the video, we worked on patterns. Today, not shown in the videos, we made shapes with straws. God awful project for 6 year olds. In the movies, see if you can spot My Main Man Mark from the previous post.

Once again, enjoy my life in the nut house.





2011년 8월 22일 월요일

My Main Man Mark

Hey. Its blowing my mind that it is the 22nd day of August and that in 9 days, it will be September. September means I have 6 months left. I'm confused.

This has been a pretty fun month. I went camping on the beach. I've discovered some new places in the surrounding area-bars, restaurants, parks. The weather is finally nice. Typhoon season seems to be over and the humidity has been doable for the past 4 days. My hot water seems to be fixed and my laundry room is no longer flooding. I got a new phone-one that works! It's also a smart phone and its way smarter than me, which makes me uncomfortable. BUT-It works. Yay. I've been hanging out with SaraClark a lot-in my journey to find a female that I enjoy spending time with since the hole in my heart that is Sophia leaving. SaraClark was in Suji last year when I got here. I knew who she was, but we never really hung out. She's back and lives close to me, so we've been hanging out. She's fun. School started at home. Little Man is a senior. That's nuts.

Today, I am going to tell you stories about one of my Robot babies. Mark. Mark is a character and a half and he makes me laugh and he makes me crazy. He has a great sense of humor and loves to fight monsters.
Mark man.

He has never remained in a seated position for more than 2 minutes. Seriously. He spends a majority of his time doing cartwheels and "fighting monsters". As a result, he is usually super sweaty and "too tired to do workbooks". Mark loves rice more than he loves fighting monsters. However, he feeds himself with 2 hands which results in rice all over his clothes, his hands, his hair, the desk, the chair, the floor, the wall. Yes. The wall. One day, I said "Markman, why is there rice on the wall?" He looked at the rice for a second, looked at me, shrugged, and said "Maybe the wall is hungry teacher." He also spills his milk at snack time a lot and says "TEACHER! I am MESSY MARKMAN!" I agree with him. One day, Mark was walking around sideways. I asked him how he was doing. He replied by clicking his hands together and saying "Teacher, I am a crab!" Mark also plays a game with himself where he holds his hands in front of him and says ____________power! For example, one day, Peter Teacher got him all wound up and said "Mark! I see monsters!" And Mark replied with "FIRE POWER!" At which point Peter said "ICE POWER!" Mark thought for a minute and shot back with "POWERPOWER!" quickly backed up with "DEAD POWER!" We also hear "DOUBLE-DECKER BUS POWER!" "CRY POWER!" and "SLEEPY POWER!". You get the drift? When we do writing activities, I will write three sentences on the board for them to copy and then draw a picture of. When we talked about the beach, I wrote: I like to go to the beach. We play in the ocean and the sand. I go with my family. Robot class wrote that and drew corresponding pictures. Mark wrote- Me is six Moms. Mom is me toy. Me is three dads. Dads is me new toy. Me is five. I like my toys. Accompanied by a picture of a power ranger pig. When asked about it, he responded with a simple "Teacher, I don't like the beach, it's dirty.

I guess you can't argue with that.

2011년 8월 7일 일요일

I like work, but I like not working WAY more

Hey! It's August. It's actually a week into August. That means I have a little less than seven months left. I've been on break the past week. I had lots of fun plans for the week, however, due to Typhoon season and tents not complimenting eachother, I did not do what I had intended on doing.

Let's back up a bit.

Three weekends ago, we went to Mudfest in Daecheon. This is the same beach that I went to for my birthday. Mudfest is what it sounds like. You play in the mud and the ocean. It's pretty fun. I went with Yoanna, Sabine, and Ian. Peter was supposed to come, but he slept through all his alarms and wake up calls. Ian and I slept in our tents on the beach and the girls got a hotel. It worked out nicely except that I saw my third Korean Thunderstorm from a tiny tent on a beach. But I stayed pretty dry and it worked out ok.

The last week of school was horrible. The kids were crazy and the teachers were grumpy. Everyone was ready for a break. Friday was movie, ice-cream, and play day and we got out 30 minutes early!

The past nine days have been a blur of friends, hiking, movies, bars, restaurants, apartments, stores, and lots of alcohol. It was not nearly as a productive break as I could have had, but I had a good time. Lots of adventures. Some new friends. Not too much sleep. Nothing to "write home about", but no complaints. It was super hot and stormy for a majority of the week.

I'm really starting to stress out about my future and what to do next. The problem is-that I love this job and I love being here, but it's not a career. I can't stay in Korea forever and so I need to force myself out. But I don't know what to do next. I don't have any long term goals. I don't even have any ideas. It's really bothering me.

I finally bought a new toilet seat today. Mine has been broken since before I moved in.

A cool thing in Korea, is there is no tipping. So life is cheaper and easier.

I got my monthly run in already. That was fun.

I saw the new Transformers and loved it. I have yet to see Harry Potter or Captain America, but I plan on it.

Happy August!