Flowers and Kangaroos.

We had a field trip this week. We went to a Botanic Garden. It was a beautiful day, but it was a boring field trip. The kids have just been cracking me up. Here are two short stories and then some pictures of the field trip. First, Jason from Robot class. He's the least advanced kid in the class. He also gets there first every morning, so we have about fifteen minutes of one on one time. We read and chat. His new thing is to ask me if I like things (pencils, erasers, shoes, gum, bears)  but he gets confused. "Teacher, you I like blue?" "Do you like blue?" "Teacher, no. Do you I like blue?" Cracks me up. Every time. Second, Tom from King Class. If you'll recall, I had him in Robot last year. He's a handful. He ran into my class on Monday and shoved a Robot out of my lap, hopped up and said, "Teacher, today I am a kangaroo. This is your pouch and I am the baby." I said OK and then laughed. Hard. It's finally spring here! Yay! The weather is beautiful and the cherry blossoms are blooming. Happy weekend! Also, Happy 21st birthday to Cheney! Wow!

Jessica from Elephant Class. Just adorable.

James. Robot Class. Check out those dimples.

Robots on a bridge. Thats me in the back. In the blue shirt guys.

First sunny day. Taking pictures outside. Like my overalls?

Zebra Class Teresa.

Look, Dad! A big rock.

This one is just to make sure you see my overalls.

Guess, point, eat?

This weekend I went to Sokcho and Seroksan. They are on the East coast of the peninsula. I've been meaning to get over there for the past two and a half years and finally did it! Sokcho is a beach and Seroksan is a mountain. (San means mountain, so it's Serok Mountain.) I got up at 5am on Saturday and went up about 7 subway stations. I met SaraClark, SaraBrown, and one of SC's coworkers and we got bus tickets. We left at 7:20 and got there at about 10. Then we found a hotel to stash our bags and hopped a bus to the mountain. It was a beautiful spring day. We walked and hiked. Saw some temples and mountains. Beautiful. On our way back to the hotel for showers, we decided to stop for a snack of some soup. There was no English and no pictures on the menus and we didn't recognize any of the words other than soup, so we pointed and hoped for the best. Result? Blood soup. Tofu-sized chunks of blood. We stomached as much as we could and then gave up. Showered and regrouped. Off to dinner. We decided that we should try seafood. Didn't know how to order it, didn't know how to cook it. After lots if confusion and being laughed at, we ended up with some delicious grilled shellfish. On the walk home from that, we decided that we'd check out a bar and have a beer. It was a Korean style bar, which means you have to order food when you order drinks. Again, no English, no pictures. Guess, point, and hope. The only word we recognized was "chicken". CHICKEN FEET. No thank you. Luckily it was super spicy so when they noticed that we didn't eat it, we told them it was too spicy and they seemed to be ok with that. They gave us socks. Went to sleep after that. Slept HARD. Woke up early in hopes of another beautiful day, but it was a bit overcast, so we decided to head home. Got home at about 2. Then I went to the river and read a little to get a little bit more vitamin D, as the sun was out again. It was a very fun, beautiful weekend. I love traveling around and seeing things here, I've just been lazy lately. Anyway. Weekend recap. I'll be stateside in about 6 weeks I think. I've been making some choices about my future, my main concern is what my blog title will be next, logically. Kisses and misses!

Entering the National Park. Bear.

HUGE Buddha.

Dragon. I like his nose.

See? He's huge!

Ceiling.

That's me. Hi, guys!

Valerie. SaraClark. SaraBrown. Going dowwwwwwn.

SaraClark-aka-BumbleBee.

That's me again. At the top.

Adventures from the Annex to Asia with SB.

Final view from the top.

Cow.

Grilling shellfish.

Whoops. That's a foot.

Robot Class has been cracking me up this week.  Jason, Lily, Tei, Kevin, Ricky, Elly, Christina.

Does anyone have any questions?

I teach a book with Robot class that is like the Language Arts books I remember from elementary school. Each unit has a theme that is portrayed with a short story, a long story, a short story and a writing activity. The first day of each story, we talk about the pictures, then I read the story, we talk about new words, and then I say "Does anyone have any questions?" Usually I'll get one about a word or an idea that we just talked about. Today, Sticky Ricky said " Umm Teacher, why is the girl wearing a red shirt? I like green shirts."  Well said sir, well said.

We learn things everyday

I assume that if you're reading this, you know me. I also assume that if you know me, you know that I wear my hair up in a sloppy ponytail 112% of the time. Logically, this is how I wear my hair at work too. Sometimes when I need to grab the attention of my kiddos again, I'll take my hair down and shake it around and the kids will scream MONSTER! And then I have their attention, I put it back up and we move on. Therefore, all of the kids have seen my hair down and out, but they're used to it just being up. OK. Now you have the background. Enter Robot Class Friday afternoon. I was re-doing my hair, but before I could put it back up, I had a little man run into me crying due to his need for a hug and a little attention. As I was holding him (with my hair down), James looks at me with a surprised look. I looked at him with a questioning eye-brow raise that he recognizes. My favorite little man says "Teacher, you are a girl!?!"

Damn.

Weekend.

Happy Easter!

Playing on a highway.

Super.

Celebrating the first beautiful spring day with a picnic and Frisbee on a highway.

The reason I'm still here

I have this seven year old in King Class. His name is Ian. He's a pistol. Today, he was speaking Korean, so I got down to be eye-level with him and to really make the lesson (don't speak Korean) stick. He looked at me scared for about .2 seconds, then his eyes got really big. He said "Teacher! Your eyes are green! Are you sick?!" and then he looked so shocked and worried about it, that I started laughing and couldn't stay mad at him.

TWO

Hey. Happy April!! I hope you didn't get fooled too much on Sunday. Things are good here. School is calming down a little. It's still a loud mad house, but its getting better. Beth is going back to Hawaii Wednesday. That's sad. We just started to bond and now she's leaving. We replaced her with a part time guy from Georgia. He works mornings with us and then he has another job with older kids after lunch. I've been trying to make the most of my remaining TWO MONTHS here. Hanging out with my friends, trying to plan some inter-Korean trips to see some things, and making plans for my future. HAHAHAHAHAHA that'd be nice. I've been playing a lot of screen golf lately. This weekend we randomly went to a South African bar to watch a 2am rugby match. It was fun. The bar tender was a white dude wearing an Ohio State Buckeye shirt. I made Ian yell OH! Like ten people responded with the expected IO! Considering it was 4 am at a SOUTH AFRICAN bar, I thought that was pretty cool. Two months. Unreal. See you soon baboon!

Dinner I made. It's called 'Mess' and it's surprisingly delicious.

Beth's going away dinner at a traditional Korean restaurant.

Sunnie Teacher and myself. She's my co-worker, Korean mom, and friend.

Me. Sunnie Teacher. Bethany.

South African Izell. Awesome.

South African Anton. Rugby viewing.

On a bus. Heading home.