Writing Prompts, Weddings and World Cup Matches!

Whew, it has been quite a while since I last updated. Blame it on the fact that I went into hermit mode after Carl and Monica left and really didn't do ANYTHING for a week.

Last week I had my sixth graders complete a writing prompt about what they wanted to be when they grew up. I had my open class for renewal last Tuesday, which was a little stressful (strangers coming in to watch you teach and judge you) but it went swimmingly. In fact, the evaluators asked to have a copy of my materials so they could take them back to their schools, so that was pretty sweet. During the class I used a hilarious slideshow my dad made with pictures of Rusty's head attached to bodies representing various professions. The kids loved it. Then I had them write what they wanted to be when they got older and why. Below are some of the answers. Some I included because they are hilarious, others heartfelt.

When I get older I want to be weapon inventor because in my home I made many weapons. And I like make weapons. And I like weapons. (Terrifying. Remind me not to piss this kid off.)

Another kid wants to be a pro gamer and on his picture there is a word bubble from the gamer's mouth that says "nuclear runch dedected! wiggggg~ddddd~! ak! go go go! ak! fier!" (I am left wondering what a "nuclear runch" could be. Oh well, FIER!)

When I get older I want to be a fantasy story writer because I want to write my brain's fantasy world. (Haha, "my brain's fantasy world." Love it.)

When I get older I want to be a singer because I want to sing and I love song and I want give happy to people than I feel very happy I want singer very much!! I think this job is very hard but I love it than it's ok. I'm seriously!! I really want thank you ~ <3 When I get older I want to be a singer! (She is enthusiastic, I'll give her that!)

When I get older I want to be a scientist because I want to make time machine and I make flying machine and smart robot and I make happy life many people and make amazing animals. (The picture for amazing animals: Pikachu.)

When I get older I want to be I have no idea because I have no idea to have became get older. (Then there is a note on the side that says "Monday: Nicholas. Wednesday: Hermann." What? I hope this isn't a hit list and he's planning to team up with the weapons kid.)

When I get older I want to be scientist because I like scien and fossil fuel is harms-ful to earth, so I want to make more clean and usefull fuel. (Awesome.)

When I get older I want to be a doctor and a writer, because I want to help poor people and ill people for free, write about adventures, my thoughts by poems and all the stories I wanted to tell others. I also want to show people how to think in a different viewpoint. (This kid is great. So studious and nice to everyone.)

When I get older I want to be a computer programmer who specifically develops software-protecting programs because of a few reasons. First, I would like to prevent other's PCs from viruses and other bugs. I got a trojan horse virus in my PC, and it was pretty nasty. (I love the ending.)

When I get older I want to be a teacher because teacher is very safe job. And maybe I will be a teacher, I play in the playground with my students. (Quite a few kids said being a teacher was a "safe" job. I'm not sure if that means safe from violence, or safe from being fired, but either way that is kind of sad that sixth graders are already thinking about that.)

When I get older I want to be solider because I like shoot gun. And the solider king is give the big care, gun, long sword, and vere expensive house. The solider king is in the history. (Nearly certain this is from the same kid who chose "Panda King" as his English name...)

When I get older I want to be a diplomat because when I become a diplomat, I would tell other countries about Korea, so Korea would be very famous. Also, I want to solve Korea's economic problems. (Future leader for sure. She's fantastic.)

When I get older I want to be a food stylist because I like eating food and I like cooking food. (Picture: SpongeBob eating pizza and saying "Delicious!")

When I get older I want to be a pilot because I like pilots. I can go another country lot and I think pilot will have many holiday because when I ride airplane and arrived the airport I can rest many times. I have some interests about airplane. I like to ride it and I don't have acrophobia so I want to be a pilot. (10 points if you can spot the world that this student looked up on their cell phone dictionary.)

When I get older I want to be a baseball player because I want to be famous and I want to get honor to my coach. I want to receive money. Then everyone will know me. And also, I want to throw the ball quickly. (I think throwing the ball quickly probably comes first.)

When I get older I want to be a vet because I love animals. When I look a sick animal, it look like need to help. And I want take care of that animal. Some people think I like preety, beautiful, young and cute animal. But I love ugly and old animal. (I love ugly and old animals, too, haha.)

When I get older I want to be a police officer because I want to kill the crime and people's safety for gloval safety. (We certainly need someone out there killing the crime and increasing gloval safety.)

When I get older I want to be a diplomatist because I don't want war. And I love Asia. I want happy Earth. Peace is Nice! I want peace! The end. (Excellent conclusion.)

When I get older I want to be a dejainer because I like dejain and it is funny. (Designer, in case you were wondering.)

When I get older I want to be a teacher because I want to make children smart. (If only it were that easy.)

When I get older I want to be oriental doctor because it's a good job and we can earn much money. We can help to sick people and we can get good feel when we help to sick people. It's easier than other doctors. (Hahaha, I laughed out loud when I read the part about it being easier than other doctors.)

When I get older I want to be a make-up artist because it's very fantastic job! I love that. I like make a many people's face. I think it's a funny! (We are all still working on the difference between something being fun and funny.)

When I get older I want to be an elementary school teacher and a writer because I want to be an elementary school teacher and earn money and teach children. But I think only doing teacher is so bored, so I want to be a writer, too- because writing some story is very fun. (It's true, sometimes my job is so bored.)

When I get older I want to be a scientist because I like to make and test how it work for example you have vinigeer you put pH paper to the vinigeer than the pH paper's color is change so you can know it is Acid or Basic. Also my favorite subject is science and math. (Can we tell what they just did in science class? Good old vinigeer.)

When I get older I want to be a teacher because teacher have many free times. And, teacher is safe job. And I like teach children. And go to house early. (Apparently I'm living the dream life! Who knew.)

When I get older I want to be a dentist because my parents want that. And I heard it is very good job. And I want to help my families's tooth. The tooth are very important. It should make much cleaner. So I want to be a dentist. But it is so hard. But I must to be a dentist! (Love the internal struggle. I must be a dentist. But it's so hard! But I must be a dentist!)

When I get older I want to be a cartoonis, sicantist because New Tom and Jerry and keeteerechkroske draw the make and animal sand plants study. (Usually I am pretty good at deciphering what the hell kids mean....but I don't have the SLIGHTEST clue what "keeteerechkroske" is.)

This weekend I finally got out of the house for a marathon of fun. My co-teacher Yeon Ah got married on Saturday. I had given her the wedding gifts I got for her, which had been kindly sent over by my mom, on Friday. We used the old "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue" mantra as a guide line and she got a bunch of small gifts: something old was an old looking quill pen that you use to sign the guest book; something new was a picture frame that says "Our Wedding" (when Yeon Ah opened this she asked if she could put her own pictures in...for real); something borrowed is her wedding dress (since they rent them here); and something blue was a garter with a blue ribbon on it (try and explain garters to a room full of Korean women...something gets lost in the translation, especially when you get to the part about the groom removing it at the reception and tossing it at the single men, haha). There was also a little heart shaped whisk in there because Yeon Ah loves baking and cooking. She was overwhelmed and repeatedly thanked me. The other girls in the office joked that they wanted to get married now so they got gifts from me. Once again, my mom is awesome.

Yeon Ah told me to bring friends to the wedding (having foreigners at your wedding gives you bragging rights...so strange) so I told Brigid and Ayzia to meet me at 3:30pm at the metro station so we would have plenty of time to get to the wedding hall for the 4:00pm wedding. Through an obnoxious series of events including pouring rain, late buses, terrible traffic, and slow trains, they didn't end up arriving until about 3:55pm. We headed out in the POURING rain, sloshing through puddles in my peep-toes, to try and find the wedding hall. The map on the back of the invitation was...let's just say "not so detailed" so we were really confused. We asked one girl and she set us off in the right direction (showing off her excellent national elementary school curriculum English phrases). Then we stopped to ask another guy and it turned out he was a friend of the groom who was also lost. Thankfully he was able to call someone and figure out how to get there.

Almost all weddings in Korea are held in wedding halls instead of churches. Yeon Ah is Catholic, so it was held at a special Catholic wedding hall. We ended up arriving about 10 minutes late and were (in typical waegook fashion) confused about what the hell was going on. Then, coming down the stairs, I was spotted by the rest of my co-teachers who asked I had seen Yeon Ah yet. We said no and they pointed us upstairs and continued downstairs to eat. One MAJOR difference between Korean and American weddings is the progression of events. Basically you come in and walk up to a desk outside the wedding area. There you sign the guestbook, hand over your present (which is almost completely money), and get a meal ticket. Now the meal ticket is yours to use whenever you want. You can go immediately downstairs and eat during the ceremony if you want. It is conveniently projected on a big screen in the hall so you don't have to miss a second. We opted to sit through the whole ceremony, even though we didn't get any of it. The lighting was pretty terrible for photos without flash, so my pictures all came out blurry and annoying.

Wedding hall.

After the ceremony I popped over and said a quick hello to Yeon Ah and her new husband before we headed down and partook in the amazing buffet dinner. So much delicious food! Yeon Ah and her husband changed and came down all dressed in traditional Korean hanboks (she wore a huge, beautiful white wedding gown for the ceremony). They looked adorable as they made their rounds and thanked everyone for coming. After we had eaten to our fill, we headed out to meet friends for the Korea vs. Greece World Cup Game!

As we left the wedding hall it was absolutely pouring. After almost sliding out of my peep-toe heels, I opted to jump under an awning and change into my Old Navy flip flops. Somehow it escaped my mind that they have absolutely no traction and when you combine them with slippery, soaking wet, marble stairs leading down into the metro station, you end up with Meaghan on her ass. It hurt a LOT, but I was able to pull it together to board the train and head over to COEX where they were having a big street cheering event. Due to the rain we thought it might be smart to walk around inside COEX (a HUUUUUGE mall) and see if there was a restaurant where we could camp out and stay dry. While we did find (and apply) some Korean soccer temporary tattoos and light up devil horns, none of the TVs were up to snuff (too small!) so we decided to try and go outside once MD Julia got there. She arrived and we checked out the area where the cheering was going on. Yeah...it was soaking wet, there was no where to stand, it was continuing to rain, etc. We figured we'd cut our losses and go meet up with the rest of the Gangdong-gu crew (cru?) at a bar near Shannon and Jamie's apartment. On our way back down into the metro I once again hydroplaned and fell. This time I really hurt myself, falling very hard on my left side. I also managed to take a big chunk out of my right arm, along with a long scratch, and two chunks out of my left hand where the umbrella I was holding cut up my finger and made me bleed all over. It was a MESS. It still hurts to roll over and stand up in the morning and sitting on hard surfaces does not make my ass bruise happy.

We made our way to the bar where we met up with Shannon, Jamie, Erich, Frank, Melissa, Chrissy, six people I didn't know, Laura, and a bunch of local fans. It was awesome to watch the game in a country that actually cares about the sport! People were so excited- there were three college kids who would randomly stand up on their chairs and lead everyone in cheers (DAE HAN MIN GOOK! being the most popular, which simply means the Republic of Korea). Everyone was out in full force with their red gear. Korea played very well and ended up beating Greece 2-0! It was awesome. Their goalie was especially on point and did a fantastic job keeping the ball outside the net.

Repping the Red Devils!

Favorite.

Cheering right after the game ended with Korea beating Greece 2-0!

After the Korea vs. Greece game, Laura and I headed up to Itaewon to find a place to stay up all night and watch the USA vs. England game that was airing at 3:30am Korean time. We bounced around to a couple of bars before stopping to get delicious, delicious kebabs for "dinner." While there I happened to run into three of the girls from the UK who had been on my Jeju Island trip back in April. Small world, that Itaewon. Eventually we found ourselves in Scrooge's Sports Bar where we talked a couple of strangers into sharing a table. Turns out that one of the strangers was a girl who was on my Jeollanamdo trip! What the heck are the chances? She was BEYOND drunk and provided a fair amount of hilarity before her group moved on to another bar. Favorite moment: when she overheard a guy with an accent and asked where he was from. He reported that he was Welsh and she asked who he was rooting for in the game later. He said England and she said/slurred "WAIT, so you're Welsh, but you're cheering for the BRITISH?" to which he had to respond with a mini-geography lesson explaining that he was, in fact, also British. It was pretty awesome. Laura and I settled in with a couple of beers and killed time until the game started.

Wooo!  Let's go USA!  

(As John Stewart said "It's just like the Revolutionary War all over again...only this time most of America doesn't give a shit how it turns out."  His coverage of the World Cup was hilaaaarious.)

The bar was pretty packed, with markedly more England fans than American. The bar across the street seemed to be the opposite; we would often hear their USA! USA! USA! chants wafting in through the open windows we were sitting in front of.

Bar across the street.

The game was good. I mean, don't get me wrong, England should have won, but it was fun to watch. Especially when the goalie let the ball slip through his fingers giving us the point that tied up the game. That was SWEET. Laura fell asleep during the game, though I'm not sure how...as it got later and the alcohol kept flowing and it became clearer that England was not going to punish us as expected, the expletives started flying! 

Sleepy time for Laura.

We left the bar around 5:30am, just as the rainy sky was lightening, and caught the first train home. I slept for a few hours, then woke up and did nothing around the apartment, and then went back to sleep for the night around 9:00pm. I lead an exceedingly exciting life!

Tomorrow night I have a Dasi Hamkke meeting, and Thursday night we are going to make attempt number two and street cheering for the Red Devils. Theoretically the US games should get easier (based on ranking), but the Korean games should get harder. Let's see how they match up against Argentina on Thursday! Friday night the US plays Slovenia and we are going to meet at a bar near our house to watch how it all plays out. I am excited! (And I'm not the only one, according to this hilarious article.)