So here is another post after a while. Sorry I don't update more, I have been REALLY BUSY (I even stopped my Korean class ... hopefully will have time again to at least self study once some of the bigger graduation preparations are finished.) .... but I feel like I should update some before the holiday stuff begins. Hopefully I don't forget any fun facts because as always I forgot to write this stuff down to remember when I have time to update this. Thankfully I take lots of pictures which always helps. This will likely not be in time order but I will try to cover everything.
So we had some field trips with the kindergarteners. First, we took them to the Gyeonggi Children's Museum. It is one of my favorite field trips so far because it gave the kids a hands on approach and they could really do what they wanted and learn about different things. They brushed a giant set of teeth, had a bicycle race with a skeleton, stuck balls up a nose, played in water, dressed up in all types of costumes (of course that was one of my favorite parts ^.^), did touch tests, and so much more. One of my favorite reactions was when Amy did a touch test and shrieked and pulled her hand out quickly (by the way the mystery item was a feather but she didn't know that). I spend most of the time helping kids from all different classes try on costumes. I was sad that they were too small for me ... whenever I spend a lot of time in America next ... I need to go to an anime convention. I think I am suffering from cosplay withdrawal though Halloween did help a bit.
The next field trip that we went on was to the bank. Mostly we just went to the bank and the manager showed the kids a few things like how to use the ATM and things like that. This went really well with our savings plans theme of the month and activities. The part that I remember most is when they gave chocolate wrapped in gold paper to each of the kids. June comes up to me and says that when he eats the chocolate he will turn into gold. Then I can sell him and become very rich. I just love my students so much sometimes. ^.^ As for the savings plan activity, I promised my kids that for every 1000 won they saved, I would give them two small candies. It is a good thing I bought a really big bag of candy, otherwise I wouldn't have had enough. I had a few students who got over 30 pieces of candy.
Speaking of my students, then we have Amy who takes in everything I say and somehow hears something else such as Teacher is not married but has a baby.... Now where did that come from? (Just for clarification: 1. I am not married. 2. I have never been pregnant. 3. Do not want kids of my own. I will be the aunt that spoils them rotten.) Or another student, Ryan from 1st grade, really listens to what I say. He knows that I like cosplaying and dressing up in different costumes so as an early Christmas present, he got me sleeves that attach to your wrists that some kind of Korean dancers wear. I will have to try them out some time.
So, I have been playing some games with the dinosaurs in Hayley Teacher's classroom. Her students enjoy coming in the next day and finding that the dinosaurs moved. I'm not sure when I started to do this, but I teach in Hayley's classroom after her and my first graders laugh at me as I move the dinosaurs around while they are writing something down. I think I am having more fun doing it than the kindergarteners are in seeing what the dinosaurs will do next. So far I have had the dinosaurs play hide and seek, the T-Rex propose to the triceratops, had the dinosaurs on each others' backs, etc. I find it a lot of fun but I think I will be running out of ideas soon. Hmm.... what to do next .... perhaps have the dinosaurs party on the floor.
We also had a minor in school speech contest and a few of my students entered and won from 1st and 3rd grade. They did good jobs so I can't complain. I also had my normally unmotivated 6th grade class do a project with the Eragon series (we read the first two stories in the series of four books). Basically they had to write a story about how Murtagh got his dragon, Thorn, and why he ended up working for Galbatorix, whom he hated. They all did an excellent job and wrote more than I required them, too. They also had to draw comic strips to go along with their stories and it was a fun project to see come together at the end.
So that is all that happened with school, next I will talk about Megan's birthday and Thanksgiving. First, we all celebrated Megan's 24th birthday at the Ashley's Restaurant (has American food and all you can drink wine). Now I'm not much of a drinker but I figured I'd enjoy the all you can drink wine since it was all you can drink for basically $3. Probably the second most I've ever drunk as the last time was an all you can drink for two hours at a Japanese Izakaya for my 22nd birthday. I wasn't quite tipsy but it did make me sleepy. I think Megan was worried about me because she insisted she get me a glass of water. ^.^ Thanks Megan. But wasn't too bad and the night air (it is getting cold here and soon it will be unbearable T.T) woke me up very quickly which was nice because after that I went with a few of the coworkers to a Noraeban (basically Karaoke).
Karaoke was a lot of fun and I love to sing. I think I surprised a few of my coworkers (last time I went to Karaoke with them, most of them were pretty drunk and don't remember much of it) as they were saying I could really blast the songs out. The first song I did was I'm Alive and it's pretty high paced. Chris and I tried a Japanese song together but neither of us knew it well enough to sing it, though I did sing another Japanese song by myself earlier in the night. I don't know enough Korean yet to sing Korean songs. I will need to study Korean more when I get the time again. Anyway, it was a lot of fun and the Noraeban people kept giving us free time so we were there for at least two hours even though we only paid for an hour.
Then Chris, Sarah, and I had Thanksgiving Dinner at Megan and Sarah's church. Megan was there too, but she was working the event so we didn't see her much. The food was a little cold but considering they had been cooking all day to feed over 500 people, that was to be expected. But despite the food being cold, it tasted great. I even ate this stuffing which I don't normally like. And the pumpkin pie was so good! This was my first Thanksgiving dinner in three years and I must say I enjoyed it. Both Megan and Sarah won some prizes. One for having a knock off item and the other for a birthday. It was really entertaining as there was dancing competitions, rap competitions, music, etc. Not quite what you would normally expect and even the pastor did a rap. I liked it enough to go back the next day and try it out. Everyone was friendly though I normally get uncomfortable in those situations. Not sure if I will go back again or not but wasn't bad overall, just me being awkward in a new setting.
I also went to the Seoul Lantern Festival with Chris and Ashley, and even managed to convince Nathaniel to take a break and join us. It was a bit cold and some of the lanterns were hard to see because they were facing the wrong way, but I really like them. My favorite part was probably the area with all the fish lanterns high above our heads. We ended up losing Chris and Ashley for a while but we saw everything and unlike the Fireworks Festival, our phones actually worked so we were able to get back to each other. Either way, it was very colorful and though not my favorite festival I've been to, I wouldn't mind going to see it again.
Okay, so some last minute small things before I post this (hopefully I didn't forget anything major). I've seen two movies recently. I love how Korea has a bunch of English films. First, I saw the Hunger Games: Catching Fire movie and it made me go and read the first book and will soon be reading the other two books. I saw the first movie a month or two ago before this one came out. It was a really good movie but a lot more violent than the first movie and I wonder how the series will end. I also realized that the first book is fairly similar to the first movie, which I don't notice very often with movies, though of course they did leave out some things that I wished they would have included. I won't say more about it as I don't want to ruin the movie for those of you who haven't seen it yet. I also watched a romantic movie called About Time where a guy can travel back in time and change how he reacts to different situations.
Other than that, I found this soda can with a cute anime style character on it. Now, I don't really drink soda but I bought it just so I could take a picture of it. I did end up drinking the grade soda just because but I honestly just wanted the picture. I also went to a cat café again with Hayley as she wanted to go to one before she left. We went to the nicer one, though I may go back to the older one as I believe the cats are more cuddly in that one. Either way, I enjoyed it and one of the kittens, who was there the last time I was there, was still there and it had grown quite a bit. The really grouchy cat was there too, but he didn't attack me this time, just stared me down. I did get one cat to finally come up to me and got some cute pictures of him on my lap. As you can see, I have been very busy lately and even more busy at work as I have literature schedules and graduation letters and speeches to work on.
Also, as I already knew, Korea is much more efficient than America, and not just there doctors, this time I am going to talk about customer service. Anyway, my phone broke down right as I was just about to get a demon that only 5000 people can get on my game T.T (I have a feeling I am going to be sad over that one for a while) and it wouldn't turn on no matter what I did. Tried both batteries, etc. I had to take it to the repair shop over lunch the next day, and not only was it fixed in 20 minutes but they didn't charge me anything. The service was free. I feel like if that had been in America, I probably would have had to wait hours or send the phone in and they would have charged me for it. And charged me a lot of money. Just another way that Korea is more efficient than America. Anyway, Christmas is coming and that should be fun as I will be having two Christmas events, one with each of my kindergartens .... but that also means practicing for two song contests. T.T Look for the next post to be about the Christmas events.
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