Move and a 27th Birthday

Today is the last day of Winter Intensive!! Tomorrow we will back to a normal teaching schedule which will be really nice. Only 30 hours of instruction and a few extra breaks. Good thing because this month I have a gazillion tests and report cards to prepare. It's pretty insane to think that not only have I been in Korea for (at the end of the week) 7 months, but I've also been teaching for 7 months. I have thoroughly enjoyed teaching, even with the pitfalls and bad days. I feel like I learn something new everyday. It could be something about a student or it could be material I am teaching (believe me, I have learned A LOT about American history by teaching Social Studies classes). It has been a wild, but amazing ride so far.

Anyway, on Saturday I moved out of my apartment and into a new one. It is 5 floors up and on the opposite side. I have a crappy view, the apartment building next to mine, but the place is super clean AND I was able to score some sweet wallpaper. Think orange flowers on the stems and then think 1970s. I'm only missing orange shag carpet, or better yet, olive green shag carpet. My place would be killer. I was pissed about the move, but now I'm all settled in and it's not a big deal. This place is quieter (no street noise, but louder neighbors) and darker (due to the lack of space for the sun to make an appearance). This is only bad when I don't want to wake up in the morning. It is quite conducive to sleeping in. Also on Saturday, we celebrate Loren's 27th birthday. We went to On the Border in Sinchon for dinner and then headed out in Hongdae. We had a ton of fun, mainly looking for the bar we wanted to go to (couldn't find it), but later settled on an old favorite, FF. They have live bands and then dancing. They play some pretty cool music and at one point we rocked out to the oldies. Again I met some new people who were awesome and I can't wait to hang out with them more. I am so in love with Korea and Seoul. This place is nothing like I expected and yet everything I expected and hoped for. Amazing people, food, culture and great times.

This upcoming weekend I am going to try and get some culture in. I haven't done anything cultural or artsy in awhile and I think its time to explore an art museum or re-visit a temple or two.

Birthday Parties, Grocery Stores and English TV

Today we celebrated the birthdays of two of our kindergarteners. It was quite possibly the cutest thing I have ever seen. The two little girls (Analise and Jessica) were showered by gifts from the other kids and we had cake (the kids had chocolate we got yellow with green tea frosting) bananas, orange juice and cream soda (I just had cake and orange juice). The kids also got bags with candy and other goodies in them, thank goodness it was after I had them for class. This morning my first kinder class was out of control. I was teaching them social studies, in the form of a time line thing, but they can't focus longer than 2 seconds. They are the same age as all the other kinders, but their English isn't as good so it seems like they are younger. It's hard for me to control them and want to teach them, I don't have the patience. I love the other kinder classes though. They understand more English than some of my grade 1 and 2s. I had to get blood work done today so that I could get my Alien Registration Card. I'm pretty sure I'm clean, no diseases or drugs for me.

The last two days I've gone down to the grocery mart in my school building to grab lunch, but I think I am going to start walking home for lunch. I get an hour and it only takes about 10 minutes to get to school. I went to the grocery store (Everyday Mart) yesterday to buy some food, but didn't buy too much because I don't have a microwave (still debating if I should buy one) and most of the food, for ready to eat needs to be microwaved. Although, ramen just needs hot water so this weekend I'll buy some ramen. Yesterday I bought skim milk, apple juice (which is chocked full of sugar, I need to find an alternative), pasta and kiwi fruit. I enjoy the grocery because its fun to look at things, things I am used to seeing in English are in Korean, but I can recognize it (name brands). They have a lot of things over here like Powerade and Gatorade, Lay's, all candy, (Korean novelty candy is way cooler), Sun Chips and a ton more. However, I really want to go to Homever to grocery shop, but I assume it'll be more expensive.

I saw a lady wearing a Wisconsin shirt today, but on the back it said something about Hawaii. I'm not sure what that implied/meant, but I smiled when I saw Wisconsin. I brought my camera along today, but totally forgot about it until I got home. I will take a gazillion pictures this weekend and work on getting them on Flickr/linking them to the blog. Well, I am going to finish Law and Order (on one of the 5 English channels) and go to bed.