Gigglegigglegiggle: TOM

Tom is a Robot baby. Sometimes, I randomly sing in class. It's a little embarrassing, but it makes the kids stop what they're doing to see what Crazy Teacher is up to.  When I sing the "Daisy, Daisy" song that I learned from a parrot on the computer when I was like 12, Tom will literally fall out of his chair laughing. Then I'll look at him and say "giggle giggle giggle?!" and all the other kids will start laughing. I usually am too. These are the fun days.

Tom. This child is super smart. He cracks me up. I laugh so much with him. I have to eat lunch with him because other wise it takes him three hours, and he only gets 35 minutes. I literally have to feed him because he won't stop talking and giggling enough to feed himself. When we're doing something he likes, he says "Katie Teacher, you are good!" When we are doing something he does not like, he says "Katie Teacher! You are bad! I no like!" So that's fun. Today at home time, he was looking down the stairs and the gate was not locked. He started to fall and I grabbed him just in time. PHEW! My heart was pounding! He turned around with a look of shock and said "Teacher! You catched me!" And then I got a giant hug. That was a scary moment. He's been really hung up on Star Wars lately. Literally nonstop ALL WEEK. Seriously. It's cute and it cracks me up. I can't figure out if hes actually seen the movies or if he just knows what the characters look like. He tries to describe how they look and what color their "gun" is. Gun means sword, gun, knife, boxing glove, basically any weapon. Then says "teacher, name is what?" and I guess about who hes talking about. Then he says "good or bad?" and I guess based on the earlier description. then he breaks down into giggles and tells me "teacher! You joking man!"

He just cracks me up. Other news. Jessica moved. That was sad. The last day with these kiddos is the 24th. Then everything changes. Yay? We'll see.

Another one bites the dust

Well. It's that time of year again. The month that I broke my leg in 2009 and found myself jobless and money-less in 2010. As a result, February makes me nervous. Although in 2011, my Dad came to spend Lunar New Year with me. Here's hoping for a good one. Keeping in mind that its a leap year, therefore a whole day longer! Ahh! Adding to this is the fact that tomorrow is the first day of said month and it is currently snowing a lot with the promise of getting SUPER cold tomorrow, meaning due to a lack of shovels and plows here, much ice. Yay.  ANYWAY. Things are good here. The puppy class homeroom teacher quit, so my three puppies have been combined with the other five year olds, Elephant class. Now there are nine of them. It's a little chaotic and loud, but it's fun. The part that makes me sad is that  went from having my puppies three times a day to once a day. I miss them. Robot Class is doing SOOOO GOOOD! They behave and speak English and crack me up. These babies are soo funny. Don't get me wrong, they still make me nuts, but it's pretty fun and makes me laugh. A lot. Or want to rip my hair out. Depends. Peter has 19 more work days, meaning I get to train a new guy in that many days. I'm sad that Sparky's leaving and of course I'm nervous about making a new friend and coworker. Congrats to Travy for receiving his diploma from Cornell. I'm happy for you. And a BIG Congrats to Little Man for winning sectionals! Yay! Life's good. I know that I will be heading to the good ole' US of A on June 1, 2, 3, or 4. Things are getting real and I'm getting nervous and anxious about my life and what to do with that. I've been trying to nail down my marketable skills and maybe a passion or two. It's hard though. I've been having a great time with my friends here. I've been meaning to try to get more Korean culture in. I haven't yet. But I think about it. Life's good.

How I run around the ROK on the weekends.

I had some friends over for some drinks and good talks. This is Big Guy Bill holding a 1kg pear and wearing a camo hat I made. This cracked us up for about 4 hours.

Art day in Robot. Jenny and her raccoon puppet.

Sally and Jessica and their puppets.

When I bundle the kiddos up for hometime, Jessica does not like to wear her hood and gloves. To convince her to do it, I call her Jesskimo. Then she laughs and laughs and laughs and it cracks me up. Everyday.

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.