School school school

I think that Bali ruined school for me. Well, not really, but it reminded me how much I like not working as well as how much I miss being outside. We're back in the swing of things and starting to wrap up the year. Robot class is now seven years old and quite pleased with themselves. They have been doing really well lately. Working hard and speaking more and more English everyday. It's pretty exciting. Puppy class is now six years old. There are only three of them now, the twins moved. Sometimes its easier to teach them because there are less, but sometimes its harder. It's harder because they fight a lot and get mad at me a lot. They are just little balls of irrational anger. But they too are getting much better and working hard. These kids crack me up. The school year ends on February 28th. Then we'll have two or three days at work with no kids. March 1st is a holiday I think, so that's cool. Then the new year. Yay. I should be home the last week of May sometime. I'm starting to get excited and nervous about that. Peter is leaving at the end of February and then we'll have a new guy come in. So that's whats up at school. Life is good. Just hanging out and enjoying my friends. Next week is Lunar New Year. So we get Monday and Tuesday off. Yay. I'm not sure what I'll do for that. Sophia is safely in Kuwait with her parents. She's going to teach and travel. Pretty cool. The boys are doing good with wrestling which is also exciting. Email me with updates. I like hearing from people and without Facebook, I feel even more out of the loop than ever. So, do that please. Also, happy 2012!

SaraClark and I sharing a bucket at Plan B. Its a drink that I named. It's called the BangBangBang. It is essentially a long island in a bucket. Its a little bit silly and a lot a bit fun.

BALI! Just pictures and captions.

Ian at our resort at Mushroom Bay.

Sparky at dinner on the beach on our first night at Mushroom Bay off the coast of Sanur.

Following my boys up the beach in search of delicious drinks.

The front part of our resort. Playing camera games while waiting for the boys.

Tromping around the island. Stumbled upon a village.

Following the boys through a village.

We found a cool beach.

Ian on the beach.

Getting ready for dinner. Shorts for Sophia!

Walking to dinner. Possible volcano in the back.

Sunset at dinner.

Sparky's last lunch on the island.

Super sweaty at lunch on the last day of 2011.

Our pool right outside our door. It was raining at the time of the picture.

Reading Sherlock Holmes, poolside.

Camera games. The pool and statue.

Reading Lord of the Rings, poolside. Sweet life.

The island that we spent three days on. It was AWESOME.

After the island, Ian and I went to Uluwatu. A surfer area. We tromped through the woods and found some tigers.

We did a 'home-stay'. This was the view from our porch.

The beach at Uluwatu.

Looking down at the beach.

The place we stayed for the last night in Bali. 

We had a fantastic trip. The weather was wonderful and the boys were great. Bali was super fun. I remembered to wear sunscreen, so I managed to not really get burnt, which is a big step for me. Just a nice tan. We played a lot of cards and read a lot. It was very relaxing and enjoyable. Considering we literally had zero plans for this trip and stumbled upon the whole thing, it was fantastic. We did a night in Kuta, a busy touristy city. Three nights in Lembungan, an island off the coast of Sanur, and a night in Uluwatu. We saw a few monkeys in Uluwatu and millions of geckos and bats all week. Our final night was spent in the air. We got into Seoul at 8am Tuesday. Work tomorrow. Blahhhhh. Happy 2012 guys!! Lots of love!

Christmas song follow-up

Hello! First, MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR! I realize it's early, but I'm going to be busy for a while, and then I'm going to Bali for the new year, so here it is. Second, things are good here. The weather is cold, but not too bad yet. Only a little morning ice and less snow so far. I seem to have finally got that cough that I get each year around this time, so I've been going to bed around 10 each school nights. I've spent my weekends playing Wii golf and screen golf and watching movies with dear friends. KakaoTalk has made it easy and fun to stay in touch with friends and family at home. If you have a smart phone, and would like to know more, please let me know. And thirdly, today we had our school Christmas Extravaganza. It was a normal morning and then we all went up to the fifth floor for a classical music concert (with parents) and a visit from Santa. Sadly, I missed all of this because due to stellar planning and foresight, I was teaching elementary students. I did manage to get some adorable pics of my girls in their Christmas attire this morning as well as a video of Robot Class attempting to wish all of "Katie Teacher's America" a Merry Christmas. Maybe you'll get a better sense of what I was talking about in the last post.

Have a warm, safe, and happy holiday season. I'd love to hear from you!!

Sally in her hot-pink "Christmas" wings.

Amy in her sparkly pink "Christmas" ears.

Jesskimo. Looking adorable with a reindeer "handa-baga"

Christmas Song Nightmare

We just spent an hour trying to teach Christmas songs to 50 babies. It didn't go well for multiple reasons. The first being, Christmas songs are HARD. I really just know the chorus to most of them. Who knew? The second being that as soon as they recognized the tune they started screaming the song in Korean and not listening to English at all. I contemplated ripping my hair out of my head. These irrational balls of endless energy. Nightmare in situations like that.

Winding down year two

January first, two thousand and twelve will be the official end of my second full year here and the beginning of my final final five months. However, this is an anniversary that I will be celebrating in Bali. Yay. Anyway, tonight I am presenting a list of things that I have not done for two entire years. For real.

• Driven a car
• Pumped gas
• Used an oven
• Used a dishwasher
• Used a dryer
• Used a sewing machine
• Touched a cow
• Fixed a fence
• Hugged my mother
• Heard only one language for an entire 24 hour period
• Not eaten rice for longer than 48 hours
• Been able to fully understand signs
• Had to worry about open containers, public intox, or being a designated driver
• Tip
• Rake hay
• Swim
• Leave or receive a voice mail
• Fully understand what my boss is asking me to do
• Pierced anything
• Chased cows around a yard
• Really seen the stars
• Known what the lady at the grocery store is asking me
• Carry wood in
• Family reunions
• And some more silly things that I had all mapped out in my head about twelve minutes ago, but that are escaping me at the moment. 

As you can tell, some of them I miss more than others. But I wouldn't trade these past two years for anything. Happy Holiday season guys. Lots of love. 

Quarter of a century

Wednesday is Jessica Sender's birthday. Jess is my best friend and an avid blog reader. Jess, this is for you. Enjoy.

What else do I have for you? Mark's got two things that he said today that are pretty funny/interesting. In art today, we made finger puppets. Mark finished first and ran to the front of the class. He held his green tiger in front of the class and SCREAMED: HELLO ROBOT CLASS! I AM A TIGER. BUT, UH, MARK IS MY FRIEND. WHERE IS MARK? UMMM MARK IS ON A DOUBLE-DECKER BUS. GOODBYE ROBOT CLASS. That made me giggle. I usually sit with him at lunch to make him eat his kim-chi. The past week or so, we've had this conversation. M: Teacher, do you like Japan? K: Yes I do. M: I do not like Japan. K: Ohhh, why? M: Because Japan eats Korea. K: Ohh. M: Do you like Korea? K: Yes, I do. M:Why? etc etc etc.

We had a field trip to Canny Village. I believe they talked about why you should recycle. Pretty boring.

Me and Tom. He was giggling through the entire performance. It was cracking me up.

Robot Class. Mark, Amy, Daniel, Tom, Jenny, Jessica, Sally.

Daniel's SWEET new fire shoes. Yeah, your eyes are working. They do light up.

My favorite part of the field trip. A rhino made from Cass cans.

Thanksgiving on Thursday. I hope you enjoy time with your family and turkey. I think I'll probably ignore that holiday. I mostly hang out with Canadians anyway.

December next week. Weird. It's getting cold here. There was ice on the walk to work yesterday. I'm not ready for that nonsense.

Happy happy holiday season! I love you and I miss you. Also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESS!!!

Snot Here

November is on the way out. The weather's getting colder. The kiddos are starting to speak of things like Christmas and being 7 years old. (since they will get a year older on January first. I mean I will too I guess, making me officially 26 in Korea, but still 24 in real life) I've been conducting phone interviews for the person coming at the end of February when Peter leaves. It's only logical that at this time of year the snot comes. These kids. Seriously. How is there so much in such tiny people. This is what I've seen done with the stuff. Wiped on the floor, wiped on desks, wiped on chairs, wiped on their clothes, wiped on their friends' clothes, wiped on my clothes, wiped in their hair, wiped in their friends' hair, eaten, ignored, and finally, WIPED IN/ON A TISSUE FOR THE WIN! Seriously. I know it's gross, but it's what I've been dealing with lately and thought you'd want to share all of my experiences.

Funny thing happened in my elementary class the other day. There are four of them. Liam loves to talk and does not take his turn doing so. I asked him a question and Sally knew the answer and was too excited to wait for Liam to think. As a result they were both yelling the answer at the same time so I could hear nothing that was intelligible. They then started yelling at each other and Liam's temper got the best of him and he took the physical route of hitting Sally. I finally got them calmed down and tried to have a conversation about what had happened with Liam. It went like this. K-"Liam, why did you get so mad?" L-" Because Sally no be quiet when I talk." K"Ok, Liam so that was hard for you, right?" L-"Yes" K-"Ok, so do you think that maybe you should be quiet when its not your turn to talk? Do you think your friends get mad when you do that to them?" About half way through that sentence, Liam put his fingers in his ears and started yelling "WHAT!? WHAT?! TEACHER I CAN'T HEAR YOU!?" I was on the edge of laughing and wanting to lose my mind.

These kids. I tell you what. They make me crazy.

 I started working out again two weeks ago. That's been weird. Easier than I thought it'd be, but not that fun. We'll see how long it lasts.

Standard weekend. Hanging out with friends, nothing too fun. I did come across this quote while reading this week and I like it. Here it is. "In nature, there are no rewards or punishments. There are consequences."

Happy second half of November! I hope everyone's getting their Thanksgiving plans situated. I think I will ignore that holiday this year. We'll see.

Kisses and misses!