Not a Coliseum, but the other thing

Its the eve of the final Monday of this month. This will not be a post about the kids, rather it will be a post about my weekend, my thoughts, ideas, and experiences of the past three days. It's not going to be that exciting. Don't worry.
Friday. Work was good. It ended on a weird note. First, after lunch, (not on my watch), Mark was playing ninja. He turned his head too fast and gave himself a GIANT paper cut on his nose from my laminated calendar. Then, when I was vacuuming, Peter opened my door and yelled "IT'S FRIDAY!!" this startled me and I screamed and jumped and fell down. Then, I was working on a 26 page document of spelling words. I was finished with A-K and Z-S. I had been periodically saving it, but the last time I clicked save, the network crashed and the whole document got deleted. Awesome. See? Friday was weird. So I stayed in that night. I watched T.V and knit. Knitted? I don't know about the past tense of that. I went to sleep at about 12. That was awesome.
Saturday. I met Ian on a bus and we went to Itewon. Itewon is a section of Seoul that in by an U.S Army base. There is a lot of shopping and souvenirs there and stuff. Its not a bad place during the day, but its super sleazy at night time. Ian did some shopping. We then went to a casino. My first time. We did some slot machines. Then Ian played Roulette. I watched. It was an interesting experience,  but it was super crowded and we really just wanted to play black-jack. We could not get on a table. So we stayed for about an hour. We then journeyed back to Suji and met up with Peter, Bill, and James for dinner and a standard Suji night.
Sunday: Hung out with Ian all day. Listened to music and discussed philosophy. We had Mexican/Korean food for dinner and I went to bed at 9.
I'm still trying to decide what to do with my future. I still don't know. I am still not on facebook. I feel good about that. Here is a picture of my super short hair.

Things are good. Five months left. Starting to freak out. Three day weekend this weekend. And then no more time off til winter break.
It is fall here. The weather is not humid anymore. Mosquitoes are out with a vengeance. Its getting dark earlier and earlier.
I hope all is well. Keep my future in mind and shoot me an email with thoughts or even just an update about YOUR life. I love you. I miss you. Keep on trucking!
katiedale09@gmail.com   OR youreahoagie@gmail.com

Earth Fire Wind Water Heart

Chuseok was a four day weekend. I really wanted to go to a beach, but its a terrible time to travel, so noone was up for it. It was a pretty standard weekend. I did go for a hike and hung out with some friends. 
I shut off facebook. I chopped my hair off. I have been avoiding making any real choices and focusing on teeny, tiny things that I can made a choice about. I played screen golf last weekend. That was fun. I'm not that good at it, but I enjoyed hitting things as hard as I could. We had a field trip today. It was a traditional Korean village/temple/palace thing. They're all over and I've been to a few, but they're also usually a good time. It was a tad more stressful this time, mostly because I was responsible for a lot of little people who were more interested in running around and playing with the dirt than listening to anyone. They did have a drum lesson. They did a good job. The funniest part was that all the kids were doing a good job and playing on rhythm and as I was thinking WOW! I'm impressed, I saw Markman. Mark was sitting in the middle of the group hitting his drum at random intervals and singing to himself. I started laughing and the boss saw me laughing so she started laughing. Elise is back from Canada. Yay. Shes up in Seoul, about an hour subway ride. I'm excited. That's the big news of the week. One week of this month. Then five months and I'm out. Pictures of Chuseok. Pictures of the day. Happy fall!

 Kristen and SaraClark at the top of a mountain. Chuseok.

 Looking down on Seoul. Chuseok.

 

 The corner of the guard post building at the top of the mountain. Chuseok.

T

 SaraClark and Peter. Travlers. Chuseok.

 The place we went today. That tower in the back is that Namsan Tower that I went to with Sophia that one time last winter.

 Robot Class. Sally, Daniel, Jessica, Mark, Jenny, Tom, Amy. Sally was mad because I made them stand girl-boy.

 Peter Teacher and King Class.

 The drum room. In black and white.

 Black and white building.

 Field trip lunch time circle. Lunch: kimbap.

 The corner of the building. Yeah, they all look the same. It was a beautiful day.

 My little drummers.

And again. Drumming ad loving it.

51! Plus, adorable hanbok overload!

Dad's birthday is Saturday. In honor, I had Robot Class sing. Please keep in mind that this was done on Chuseok, and they were extremely wound up and had trouble focusing on anything.

 

You may be thinking, "man they're wearing weird clothes." Yes. They are in fact wearing traditional Korean clothing called Hanbok. They wear these for Chuseok and weddings. Chuseok is sort of like Thanksgiving. Its in September, and its based on the full moon I believe. This year it falls on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. They also observe the day after. Therefore,we have a four day weekend. Yay. The following are pictures of Puppy and Robot classes looking unbelievably adorable. Adorable.

 Amy. (R)

 Tom (R)

 Thomas (P)

 Julie (P)

 Mark (R) (POWER!)

 Daniel (R)

 Elly (P)

 Jenny (R)

 Sally (R)

 Jessica (R)

 Tei (P)

 Jini (P)

Me and Robot class.

Puppy class is five. Robot class is six. Kate left our school because she lives so far away and her four year old brother is ready to start school, so they moved her to a closer school. Happy Chuseok!! Happy Birthday Dad!! Love you!

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.

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.

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!

Just Keep Thinking, Butch. That's what you're good at.

Hey all. No big news. I have some fun tentative plans for the rest of the month, but because they're super tentative, I'll wait to tell you about them when they're finished. School's going well. My Robot babies are improving a lot and behaving sometimes. The Korean co-teacher on our floor said that we get little to no parental complaints, knock-on-wood, but yay! She also hired me. This is how the conversation went.
Sunnie: Katie, I am worried about my daughter. She is a lot like you.
Katie: Uh-oh.
Sunnie: She is very quiet and shy. She likes to read books more than she likes to talk to people.
Katie: Aww man! I thought I was doing a good job hiding that from you!
Sunnie: Hahaha
Katie: Aww man.
As a result, I meet with her 11 year old daughter and we talk about books once a week. It's pretty cool. She's pretty fluent, although real shy and real quiet.

Things I miss from home:

• Family
• friends
• Mowgli
• the farm
• Mexican food
• IHOP
• Target
• English
• driving
• texting anyone I want
• not having rainy season
• a dryer
• my sewing machine
• an oven
• newspapers/local news on in the evening
• some other things that I randomly think of and mean to write down, but never do.
  

Things I don't miss from home:

• dealing with a car in the snow/rain
• being unemployed
• sales tax
• expensive restaurants
• expensive bars
• no public transportation
• cows getting out
• raking hay
• American politics
• some other things that I randomly think of and mean to write down, but never do.

Happy almost half way of July. Wow does time fly!