Dragging Along!

The humidity in Korea has reached epic proportions.  Today it took my hair FOUR HOURS to dry.  Four. Hours.  That is crazy.  My hair is not that thick and generally dries pretty quickly...but not with this much moisture in the air.  The oppressive heat and humidity make me so tired; I just want to curl up on my bed in my air conditioned apartment and sleep.  Of course that is out of the question since I have so much to do this week. I can't believe that at this time next week (and in two weeks...and in THREE weeks) I'll be at home!  I really have to say that since I finalized the dates and bought my plane tickets I've been significantly more homesick than if you had taken a random sampling of days over the past year.  It also is probably due in part to the fact that I have a bunch of friends going through MAJOR life changes.  In the year that I've been gone I know four people that got engaged (Lindsay, Jenny, Morgan and Bruno), six people that got married (Heather, Kat, Sarah, Sara, Erica, Annie) and two people that had a baby (Heather, Sarah).  And those are just the people I am close enough to know the details for...there are COUNTLESS others I frequently Facebook stalk.  I swear, photos of diamond rings, white gowns and sonograms are a daily occurrence on my Facebook feed.  I know it is dumb, but it seems kind of crazy that while I'm on the other side of the world, things have changed so drastically for people I love back home.  It will be interesting to see how much of a culture shock it is to go back...when everyone around me is speaking English how will I choose who to eavesdrop on?!

Camp finished without a lot of fanfare last week and I didn't do much this weekend outside of studying and doing some laundry.  I had a really good group of kids and the people who ran the Cheondong Camp had it basically down to a science.  They said they wanted to see us all again for Winter Camp and I would go back there in a second.  On Friday, after the closing ceremony, the principal took us all out to lunch.  We got picked up by a couple of vans and taken a little ways out into a SLIGHTLY more rural area where the restaurant was located.  I stepped out of the van and came face to face with two tiny beagle puppies.  I almost started crying...holy crap I can't wait to see my dogs!  They were absolutely precious.  Overall I couldn't have asked for more out of my two-week camp experience.  The kids were fun, the classes were small so I got to know everyone, my co-teacher was effective and spoke English well, and the other NSETs were a good group of people.

My co-teacher, Ji Won, and I.  She is super pale and proud of it...she carries a parasol everywhere she goes.  Definitely a girly girl, but a lot of fun to work with.

Apple Class REPRESENT!  Hahaha.

Top: Ji Won, Helen, Joshua (yup), Julie, Kevin, James, and Tim

Bottom: Lim, Jack, Andy, Sunny, Kevin, Simon, and Me

Last night I was up late freaking out over GRE/grad school stuff so waking up this morning sucked, as predicted.  Once again I have a long commute.  It takes me about 15 minutes to walk to Gangdong metro station, then a 15 minute ride, and a 10 minute walk to Guhwon Elementary.  I miss the commute to Cheondong already!  This camp also runs later...I don't have to be at work until 9:40am, but I don't get to leave until 1:20pm.  And I don't get lunch.  Last week I had to be there at 8:40am, but I was done at noon every day and I was fed a delicious lunch before retiring to Holly's Coffee for some studying.  I will not be a camp snob.  I will not be a camp snob.  I will not be a camp snob.

Today we had an opening ceremony and it was in the auditorium which is in the basement of Guhwon (a HUGE elementary school).  At one point I looked over and I was HORRIFIED to see...a spricket.  Thankfully someone killed it with celerity.  (Nope, not with celery.)  I thought I left those devil creatures in Bowie?!  After the opening ceremony we did some ice breaker stuff for about 50 minutes, and then taught two of our "craft" classes where the kids are learning the song Lemon Tree and then making lemons with invisible ink messages on them.  I thought this project up and the connection was that the invisible ink was, obviously, lemon juice.  Somewhere along the line, however, Young Ah (my co-teacher at Guhwon) switched out the lemon juice with vinegar.  Our classroom smells like Easter eggs.  Oh well.  Thankfully we only do this project today and tomorrow, Wednesday is Sports Day, and then we switch to making fireworks with paint.  The kids were told to bring their own paint...so we'll see how that works.  It is hard to control the outcome when you don't control the materials!

After work I went over to Jamsil, grabbed some lunch, and then picked up my visa renewal paperwork from my school before going down to Samseong Medical Center to pick up the results of my medical check.  (I'm fine.  Hurrah.)  Tomorrow I have an appointment at immigration to get my visa and Alien Registration Card renewed/extended and then I'm meeting some people for a farewell dinner at Ashley's (a delicious wine and food buffet that the Cru went to last week for our farewell dinner).  Last Friday I met up with Ayzia briefly and we said our goodbyes.  It is strange to think that these people won't be such a part of my life anymore!  Thursday night we are having a get together at the wine buffet to celebrate Chrissy's impending nuptials in Thailand, and Friday night Julia is having a goodbye party on her rooftop.  Looking forward to the party.  Not looking forward to saying goodbye to one of my very favorite people I've met on this crazy adventure.

So this is my goodbye to Andie, Angie, Ayzia, Brigid, Candace, Dana I, Julia, Justin, Madeline, and Melissa,.  Safe travels, good memories and happy homecoming. 

Warm Desks and Muddy Friends!

Sorry for not updating sooner.  My mom pointed out to me the fact that it is has been more than two weeks since my last entry.  I know that there are (at least a couple of you) besides my mom who read this, so sorry to keep you waiting!  Much of my time recently has been consumed by studying for the GRE...but I'll talk about that later.  Here's the update.

The truth of the matter is that all week, from July 11-16, I just deskwarmed and it was exceedingly boring.  Seriously all I did was sit at my desk from 8:40am-4:40pm every day.  I don't know how people with desk jobs do it...I find deskwarming a whole lot more exhausting than teaching.  The only plus to may hours at my computer was that I completed two more digital scrapbooks for Korea, bringing my total to three (which cover August 2009-May 2010).  If you are interested in seeing them, you can check them out online here.

Friday night (July 16), we went out to celebrate Boram's birthday.  We started the evening with some bowling in the Kongkuk University area (soooo much closer and more convenient for me than the usual areas we frequent) and then moved on to a restaurant where we gorged on samgyeopsal and galbi.  We ended up at a bar where we had a fantastic birthday cake and hung out until around 2:00am.  It was an excellent celebration.

Boram showing off his bowling form.  I haven't bowled in FOREVER...but it was a lot of fun and I still came in third.

Boram making a wish.

And blowing out the candles.

We didn't have any plates so we all just dug in like cannibals.  Cake cannibals.

The weekend of July 17-18 was one I had been waiting for...Boryeong Mud Festival!  Basically there is this coastal town about 2.5 hours outside of Seoul that had an overabundance of mud.  In a true "when you have lemons make lemonade" situation, they created this huge festival completed based around their mud.  They truck in in from fields to a local beach called Daecheon and have 10 days of crazy mud events.  It has more foreign visitors than any other festival in Korea.  To be honest, the few days before we left I was wondering if I was crazy.  I do my best not to be surrounded by drunk white people in Korea...why was I going to an event that was full of herds of waegooks who were not only annoying, but ALSO covered in mud?  However I had already paid so I talked myself into it and DRAGGED myself out of bed at 6:30am to get ready and go meet the bus.  (Yeah, please note that I didn't get home until like 2:30am...so I was running on very little sleep.)  I was the first one to arrive so I snagged us some killer seats right in the front of the bus and waited for Ayzia, Laura, Julia, Dana and Erich to arrive.  One by one they all showed up...except Erich.  Turns out he overslept after our night out and he ended up missing the bus.  So that sucked.  We all settled in for the 3 hour trip and promptly fell asleep.

Fast forward to our arrival at Daecheon Beach.  We had come on the trip as part of the Seoulite Meet-up Group. As you may recall I went on another meet-up trip to Jeollanam-do with Carl and Monica, however that was through the Korea Travel and Tourism group.  Dana had made the executive decision that we should go with Seoulite because they were offering the tours the cheapest.  It is run by a NSET from Colorado who plans these trips in addition to her regular job (unlike William from Travel and Tourism who ONLY plans the trips...that IS his job).  I have to say that I was a little disappointed with the organization of this trip and the accommodations provided.  There was very little direction from the trip organizer so everyone was confused and just kind of going all over the place.  Dana and her friends Tina and Ava had run ahead and gotten a room, closing the door on everyone else trying to find a place to sleep.  We weren't told how many people were supposed to be in each room so no one knew what was going on.  It was kind of a mess.  The rooms themselves were fairly small (which isn't that big of a deal) and didn't come with enough floor pads or blankets (which is that big of a deal).  It ended up being Julia, Laura, Ayzia, and I in one room, with a teacher named Sunny and the event organizer.  Though we were all new to the show, Sunny had been at multiple Mud Fests before so she was able to give us some invaluable tips, such as the idea of buying one of the plastic pouches you can get at convenience stores by the beach to put your camera in so it didn't get ruined.  Good call!

Saturday was overcast and intermittently raining, but we got changed and headed towards the beach.  Along the way we bought some drinks and sat around for a while enjoying them as we waited for the rain to settle down.  Then it was time for the mud!  We started by walking all the way down the beach (maybe 20-25 minutes) to the regular mud.  Along the way we played in the ocean a little and just generally took in the sights.  There were tons of inflatables you could go in all muddy, including bouncy castles and mud slides.  There was also a major mud fight going on.  It was insanity!

Mud Festival madness.

Look at that mud fly!

Along the way we found that some fishermen had left their waders sitting out.  Ayzia couldn't resist modelling them.

Daecheon Beach.

Hahah, Julia is either selling tampons or deodorant...either way, I'm buying.

I miss being near water.

Don't fight the frolic.

At the far end of the beach, in front of a bouncy castle, there was a man pouring mud on people so we got in line to get dirty.  What a bizarre situation.  Standing in calf deep muddy water, tons of dirty Korean children laughing and splashing around you, getting buckets of warm, gooey mud poured all over you.  Only in Korea.  After getting covered, Laura, Ayzia and Julia took advantage of the mud slide and we did a mini photo shoot before going down into the water and getting washed off.

Muddy girls.

Muddy boys.  (For real, how adorable are these?)

Muddy inflatables.

(Can you spot which one of these things is not like the others?)

Laura was the first one to get muddy.

Then Ayzia and Julia took the plunge.

They are special.

Muddy to the maxx.

Whoa! Somebody stop that foreigner...she's stealing a kid!

Gaaah! Why is the mud so unexpectedly warm?

Eye love the Mud Festival!

I look like a swamp thing! With elephant skin.

Sploosh down the mud slide, haha.

Love my muddy buddies!

After rinsing off in the ocean we found a nice little place on the boardwalk to grab dinner.  Laura and I got pizza which took about 8 years longer to make than Ayzia and Julia's meals, so they were basically done eating before we even got ours.  And they were asleep before we finished, haha.  Playing in the mud and ocean all day can really tucker you out!  That night we turned in early, in fact I fell asleep and missed the big fireworks display.  Oops.

The next morning we woke up and...could it be?  gasp!...it was actually sunny.  Beautiful weather, with a cool breeze and little puffy clouds in the bright blue sky greeted us and we were PUMPED.  We grabbed some food, stashed our stuff in a locker, and got in line to get painted.  Basically at the Mud Fest there are two main ways to get covered in mud.  First, you can have the regular mud poured on you, as we did in day one.  Also in this category is jumping into one of the mud pits and getting tackled into the mud.  Second, you can have colored mud painted on you by a little old man or woman in a tent especially for mud painting.  Since we had already done it one way, we figured we'd get decked out in colored mud for our second day at the festival.  Sunny joined us, and in line we met Min, a guy who lives in Seoul.  We spent forever inching our way up to the front of the line until it was finally our turn.  They had all different colors - grey, blue, green, yellow, red - and the painters would just go town and decorate you however they felt inclined.  It was pretty sweet.  One thing that was really hilarious was that there was a HUUUUGE group of paparazzi waiting to take pictures of the foreigners as soon as they were painted.  Apparently there is a big photo contest so they were all snapping away, trying to get a good shot.  No photo permission required, I guess, haha.  Ayzia was a STAR.  I would so not be surprised to see her on some Boryeong Mud Festival flyer next year.

Day 2: Before.

Julia, me, Ayzia, Laura, Min

Mud "paints"

Ayzia is halfway to a masterpiece.

Looking forward to the next mud festival!

Julia and I as I was being painted.

Ayzia and her adoring fans.

Day 2: After

Me, Ayzia, Julia, Min, Sunny, Laura

We enlisted the help of a passerby to try and take a jumping in the air picture.  We failed miserably and repeatedly, but ended up with some absolutely hilarious shots.  In this one, Julia decided that we all needed to run and jump...clearly it was unsuccessful.  

"Now let's take a tribal shot."
Would we call this tribal?  Hahah, we (and by "we" I mean "Julia and Ayzia") are so menacing.  ANTM watch out.

The rest of the day was spent sitting in the sun, drinking beers on the beach, going in the ocean, and grabbing a quick bite to eat before we got back on the bus and made the journey back into Seoul.  Overall it was a HILARIOUS, awesome, bizarre, and entertaining experience.  I had so much fun with the girls and I really couldn't have asked for a better time.

You know what I could have asked for?  Common sense.  For some reason, I thought that mud would have some sort of natural sun-blocking properties.  Not the case.  I ended up with a totally horrific sunburn...probably the worst I've ever had.  More than a week later I'm still getting rid of it and peeling all over the place like a creeper.

This past week was my first week of summer camp.  The location can't be beat (less than a ten minute walk from my apartment), the kids are funny and creative, and the people I work with are great.  So I really can't complain.  I get there around 8:30am, teach from 9:00-10:20, have a twenty minute break with a snack that the school provides, and then teach again from 10:40-12:00.  We send the kids on their merry way, eat take out they order us for lunch, and I'm home by 1:00pm.  It is a dream.

My co-teacher, JiWon, and I teach about animals and the rain forest.  It is pretty chill.

I have been filling up my afternoons studying for the aforementioned GRE.  Uuuuugh.  Let me tell you, if I had any tiny little inkling that I might want to go to law school it has been quashed by this.  I don't think I would survive studying for the bar.  What especially pains me about this whole thing is that I have always been very firm in my beliefs that you cannot study for standardized tests.  But that was back in the day when I still had ANY IDEA HOW TO DO MATH.  I'll tell you this: "skills" such as finding the area of a circle and solving for y when x equals blah blah blah have been purposely removed from my brain to accommodate more useful knowledge.  Such as random trivia. (Did you know that SWIMS, I, and NOON are the only words in the English language that are spelled the same way even when turned upside down and backwards?  Or that a pip is a seed?)  Anyway, my mom was helpful enough to go out and get me a GRE study book and send it over in a package that I received last Monday.  I cracked it open, got right down to a practice test and quickly grew horrified.  More than anything this book has shown me all that I do not know...and all that I do not hope to learn in the next four weeks.  And, I mean, math is one thing, but the vocabulary section is also ABSURD.  I consider myself to have a pretty strong vocabulary, I am a voracious reader and I have a pretty good grasp of the English language.  But man, there are words on this thing I've never, EVER, read or heard.  Grandiloquent?  Nope.  Quiescent?  Definitely not.  Vituperative?  Not even certain how to pronounce it.  Sections of the book are also condescending, which makes me want to punch the writers.

"Antonym Questions
Helpful Hint #8: In Eliminating Words, Test Words for Their Positive or Negative Connotations!

Example
CHARY:
(A) bold
(B) bright
(C) unsteady
(D) unforgiving
(E) unhappy

You cannot define chary.  You would hesitate to use it in a sentence of your own.  And yet, you are sure the word has a negative feel to it.  A person is chary about something.  You have a sense of holding back."

Uhhh...DO I?  I read the word "chary" and I think of delicious little red fruits hanging from a delightful green stem.  I most certainly do NOT have a sense of holding back...but thanks GRE book, for making me worry about the fact that I don't.

I also love the completely ridiculous examples they give for some of the vocabulary words.
"antediluvian: adj.  antiquated, extremely ancient.  Looking at his great-aunt's antique furniture, which must have been cluttering up the attic since before Noah's flood, the young heir exclaimed, "Heavens! How positively antediluvian!"

For the record, I am pretty sure no young heir has ever uttered such a statement.

I guess the thing that drives me the most crazy is the fact that when you're in high school and taking the SAT, or in college thinking about the PRAXIS or whatever, you can try to convince yourself that out there, later, in the "real world" you might need to know how to apply the distributive property to a binomial or find the area of an equilateral triangle whose sides are 10. But at this point, after living in the "real world" I can state with out a shadow of doubt that I ABSOLUTELY DO NOT NEED TO KNOW THIS SHIT.  And it is a little frustrating that I'm being tested on it.  Each day I spend from 2-4 hours studying, working my way through insipid vocabulary lists and impenetrable math reviews (you like how I opened my vocabulary review to the "I" section there?).  Thankfully it is only going to go on for about another month and then I'll be out of my misery, hopefully earning a high enough score that I'll NEVER have to think about the GRE again!

SASiversary: 5 Years Later

Though I would be hard pressed to tell you how the hell it happened, five years have passed since I boarded the MV Explorer in Vancouver and set sail on Semester at Sea. Five years! Certainly someone hit the fast forward button….because there is no other explanation for how five years has passed in what often feels like the blink of an eye.


Somewhat recently I “rediscovered” a blog I kept in the months leading up to my voyage and the months after I came home. It’s not like I ever forgot it existed, I just hadn’t gone through it and read it in a long time. To describe it in a word…ANGST. Hahaha. I was pretty messed up and SASsick when I got home and I did a lot of venting.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

“It was hot today...but it was nothing like the stifling heat and humidity of India. It rained today...but there is no comparison to the sudden downpours of Brazil. I heard someone laugh today...but it sounded hollow when compared to the beauty and innocence of the orphans' laughter in Kenya. I had ice cream today...but somehow it didn't taste as good as the ice cream we rushed to consume as we headed back to the ship in Vietnam. We talked about Venezuela in Spanish class today...but the conversation couldn't embody the feeling of tension when talking about politics, or the beauty of the cloud forest and coastlines. I wore a red SAS shirt today...but the color means nothing here when contrasted with the immense ideals it embodies in China. I looked out at the Pennsylvania mountains today...but they are really just hills when I remember the ascent up South Africa’s Table Mountain. I climbed steps today...but it wasn't that hard because they weren't moving underneath me. I looked at water today...but it seems ordinary when it isn't the only thing you can see out your window. I learned about ethnocentrism and globalization today...but my teacher lacked the passionate, poetic words of Fessler. I slept today...but my bed was without that gentle and hypnotic rocking motion that lulled me to sleep. I missed the ship more today than yesterday...but I am sure I'll miss it more tomorrow.”

Coming back from SAS is like a bad break up. People outside the relationship can’t understand and you feel whiny when you talk about it, but it’s insanely difficult. You’ve spent a hundred days with this core group of people, sharing some profoundly life changing experiences. How do you explain how your heart broke when you turned away from the maimed and begging children in India? Or how it healed when you volunteered in the townships in South Africa? Then there's that little thing we like to call Wave Day.  Some of the stories just sound flat out dumb to people who weren’t there. I mean, it’s impossible to describe how hilarious the Dong Diaries were, or how Larry Meredith cemented his place in your heart by trying to perform an exorcism on a faulty LCD projector in Hong Kong. Or how right then, in that moment on Neptune Day, it seemed crazy NOT to shave your head. The pages covered in hangman games or haiku notes just won’t mean the same thing to you as it does to me. And staging a coup on the smoking deck after a little too much ron (yeah, I mean ron)? There are no words.

Me, Larry Meredith, and Lyndsay

Erin says goodbye to her mohawk on Neptune Day.

There is still stuff that brings back a flood of memories with just the slightest provocation. I hear Madonna’s “Like A Prayer,” and it reminds me of the day in Kenya when I stood with the Bus 5 Crew, heads out of the pop-top safari van, wind whipping through our hair, singing at the top of our lungs and laughing until we cried. I see an article about political changes occurring in Venezuela, and instantly I am back in Caracas, sharing a pitcher of sangria with Pat Meredith after a day at the cloud forest. I check the time, and for just a second I don’t see my watch, but the watch whose seconds are marked by Mao’s waving hand that I bought off a guy in the Summer Palace (who, by the way, totally traded me a good 100RMB bill for a fake one…a mistake I will never make again). I see a roasted chicken and I think of the ones Lyndsay and I bought for the little boy in Capetown who was begging for money to feed his family (and we won’t even get into the hour long conversation with the homeless couple when we were stranded outside the District 6 Museum). I see a kid wearing a soccer jersey and I can feel the rain pouring down on us as we screamed our throats raw at the soccer game in Salvador. I see a window and for a second, I’m back in our room on the ship, sitting in our window seat, watching the waves at night…stunned (like I always was) but the vastness of the ocean. On warm days the sun hits my face and transports me right back to deck 7 starboard side, laying on a recliner with my iPod playing as we “studied” for some upcoming test or assignment.

Pop-topped on the Kenyan plains.

Deck 7 Starboard!  This was our turf!

Thursday, September 8, 2005

“I spent
so much time in
places around the world...
I wish that I was anywhere
but here.


I found
new homes on each
continent, and now the
home I grew up with doesn't seem
to fit.


I miss
the feeling of
the waves. the adventure
of waking up each morning with
new eyes.“

(Uhh, can you tell we had just learned about cinquain poems in Language and Litteracy?)

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

“I yearn for the ship and the life I lead on SAS. Miss, want and wish for are all too trite of a description for the deep and passionate way that I yearn for the simplest and most common things and the specific things I don't know if I'll ever experience again. Someone saying "May I have your attention please, may I have your attention please." Fessler's rhythmic speech that hypnotizes you into believing that you aren't actually learning. Waking up in a new place: be it a new continent, country, timezone, hemisphere or ocean. Hearing the quiet stories and giggles of groups sharing stories as you walk through the piano lounge late at night. Times when there was actually nothing on television. Standing on a street corner absolutely immersed in a foreign culture; the sounds, the sights, the smells, everything. Hearing children laugh in a dozen languages. Seeing the sunrise on places I've only dreamed of. Knowing that if I stretched my arm out as far as I could, I could TOTALLY touch that lion. People who welcomed me into their homes with an open mind, open arms and open heart. Teachers who had so little, yet managed to impact more lives than most teachers here could imagine. Children who put on the same torn clothes and walk barefoot to school, so eager to learn and to inspire pride in their families. I could go on for ages.”

Caitlin, Ari and Erin chilling in our room.

You know how I know this was pre Wave Day?  Drawers are taped shut so they wouldn't wake us up banging open and shut on rough seas at night.

Some of the stuff I wrote about in the journal was just downright surprising to read five(+) years later. For instance, on July 24, 2005, I posted a link to Footprints Recruiting’s Korea section with the words “When I read this website, I feel like I finally have something to look forward to when I graduate college. This is what I am going to do when I get out of school.” If you had asked me last spring during the application process for SMOE if I’d ever done research on teaching in Korea before, I would have said that I’d done a little, but nothing too concrete. I do not remember ever having looked at Footprint’s site before last year. Crazy.

On Wednesday, August 18, 2004 I posted the SAS field programs I had signed up and gotten approved for. I was blown away when I read this to see, listed under Korea, “Haeinsa Temple and Daegu.” Whaaat? That is where we went on our temple stay. Four and half years after the first time I was supposed to visit! That’s fate man. (Fate to do what, exactly, I’m not sure. Fate to have my legs hurt for a week after? Fate to throw up from flu medication at 4:00am behind a Buddhist temple? Fate to be there when a GIRL FELL OFF A CLIFF? Perhaps I was fated to meet that awesome monk Jason, haha.)

Anyway, I can’t believe it’s been five years. And now here I sit in Korea, one of the great lost ports, fairly content with my life. The last five years have certainly had their ups and downs, but I can’t complain. And some day, I’ll be back on that ship setting sail on another adventure of a lifetime. You can bet your SAS.

_________________________________________

Now for a Korea related update. The past two weeks have been relatively uneventful. I worked camp at Aju from 9:00am-1:00pm every day. The commutes were horrendous (Green Line sucks ALL THE TIME, but it was definitely made worse by the snow that made roads impassable). I did lots of fun activities with my kids (cause, duh, I’m awesome…) including a bunch based around the “If You Give A…” books. At the end of last week kids had to write their own stories which turned out pretty hilarious. I’ll see if I can find a good way to display them on here. On Friday, as kind of a celebration that we made it through the weeks, we made pancakes (and we made them look like pigs as a little shout out to “If You Give A Pig A Pancake”). Uhhh, I flipped over 120 pancakes on Friday and when I got home I was DEAD. But it was a lot of fun and the kids really enjoyed themselves.

Cecily with pig. (No idea where she got the name Cecily.)

Hans with pig. (But here they say Han-suh.)

Julie pouring her pig's head.

Julie with completed pig.

Little Kevin with his pig.

Rachel with her surprised pig.

Love Teddy's pig's raisin ears.

Lion and Smith making their pigs.  (Yes.  Lion and Smith.)

Ambivalent pig close up.

Happy pig close up.

On Thursday after camp I met up with Dana and her friend Aaron to hit the dog café for a bit in Hongdae before making our way to the Czech Visitors’ Center where we were meeting Natasha. Why, pray tell? Because in order to celebrate the 20 year anniversary of the iron curtain falling in the former Czechoslovakia, they were hosting a movie series about various communist countries around the world. This movie was a Czech documentary about a group of Czech tourists visiting North Korea. It was interesting and intermittently annoying. We were the only ones there so we had free range to pause it when someone had to go to the bathroom and talk during it, which was really nice. They have some other movies on the Congo and Nepal that we might go back for. As long as the annoying guy with sideburns from the tour group in the North Korea movie isn’t on the others, haha. After the movie, Dana, Aaron and I went out for some delicious chicken fried rice and I headed home. This Sunday, Dana, Natasha and I met up in southern Seoul (“I didn’t even KNOW there was a pink line!” –Dana Lee) for an international photography exhibit. I wondered why it had been so difficult to get directions to this crazy huge shopping complex (it’s like 4x the size of COEX!) and upon arrival I realized it was because they aren’t open yet! That worked out well for the exhibit as there was plenty of room to display all the photos. It was pretty sweet. The theme was crossing reality and fiction through the use of digital art, etc. There were some riveting prints.  After the photography exhibit we walked around near the Olympic Park World Peace Gate for a bit before coming back to my aptment where we watched a movie (read: Natasha and Dana napped while I watched Stick It) and had pancakes for dinner.  It was a quality relaxing day.

Crazy circular picture.

Fish made out of other pictures.

Pieced together.

Terrifying Stepford children whose noses had been shrunk and eyes had been made larger.

World Peace Gate and a skating rink.

Flags in the snow.

Dana dressed like an eskimo stealing a toy gun from a young Korean child.

Today I started winter camp at my school. In the ridiculously tiny hoodie. It’s nice to see some of my kids again and I am split over two classes- one with kids I don’t teach yet because they’re too young and one with kids I do teach. It’s nice to have some new faces. And my co-teacher/team teacher, Min Hee seems pretty cool and definitely easy to work with. My only concern was that what they planned today (an 8 question interview activity) was sooooooooo not enough to fill up 40 minutes so I’ll have to be careful in the future and be ready with some fillers. And we made Peppero and the chocolate had hardened up by the end so that sucked for the last kids. But it was still tasty.

Delicious!

Haha, you can see that the chocolate was less cooperative for these two.

So LITTLE!  And adorable.

Messy like whoa.

Probably the most exciting thing that happened since I last wrote is that I found out Jo Anna is coming to visit! She arrives Friday night (Jan 22) and leaves the following Thursday afternoon (Jan 28). I am beyond excited and I have planned out quite the whirlwind tour. The theme is: You Can Sleep On Modes of Transportation. Hahaha, we are squeezing a lot in and I am pumped to introduce her to Korea. Plus she’s bringing me some stuff from the states to I don’t have to pay to have it shipped here and that makes her even more golden in my book. Ok, that’s all for now.

I think you know how we do, but in case there was any confusion....here you go. This is how Jo Anna and I party.  LOL

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PSA- If you haven’t voted for Pencils of Promise yet, please do so now! It would really mean a lot to me. http://www.pencilsofpromise.org/vote.