Call Me Your Darling (yay 25!)

The weather is getting warmer, the dust levels are high, the clocks sprang forward in America, it's basically spring!!

The biggest event this week was my birthday, which was on Wednesday. I treated myself to a real coffee in the morning, and was treated with a surprise!

Look at the book in the shop! ooooh!

I went to school and was greeted with a present from Young Ah

She knows I like masks! She got some cute animal
ones and ones that are for when you wanna say
sorry for drinking too much beer and coffee, skin

She also surprised me in class with a cake and
got my kids to sing to me... so lucky

My students were adorable and some remembered my birthday (with help from Young Ah, I suspect). It was great and made the day go well.

Just prepping for class for 3rd grade. We're
practicing introductions

After a relatively easy and happy day, I met up with Cesca, Lauren and Grace in Hyehwa, a trendy college area in Seoul, for some great food and fun!

We went to a place that had fancy drinks.

Mix & Malt has delicious food and drinks. 

Next, we went to a raccoon cafe, which is exactly like a dog or cat cafe, except the animals are grabbier and commonly thought of as pests. Not in Korea, I guess. The cafe was pretty crowded for a Wednesday, and the raccoons were very active and just ran around a lot and tried to grab your drink when you weren't looking. They would also jump on you if you were standing too still sometimes?

They also liked to paw at the ceiling, causing showers
of white

this fatty got stuck a lot 

he kinda gave up trying for a bit

always gotta try and get the selfies

On Thursday, it was annoyingly another workday, so we had to go back to reality after a really fun birthday night (rude).

My office got partition divider things for our desks, except apparently they didn't measure correctly and the principal thinks they're too tall so now we can't see each other... 

Wait, isn't that the point??? Oh school...

Me hard at work while the dude spent 2 hours
installing them. JK, I planned my lessons through
Tuesday so I had lots of downtime.

Friday was Young Ah's birthday, so I bought her a yankee candle (she likes candles and has trouble sleeping, so I bought a lavender vanilla one) and I tried to write a nice card.

I tried to say "In this big world I was able to meet
to meet you so I am very happy. Because of you,
I am living enjoyably in Korea. I think of you
as family. Let's do everything beautifully together!
Love you!"

They wrapped it so nice!!!

After school Friday, Cesca was feeling nervous about her exam, so I went over to cheer her up, but mostly I wanted fried chicken from the place near her house.

We stopped and got macaroons on the way home, since we hadn't eaten cake together on our birthday.

Ces lighting a candle the safest way possible

They were delicious. We had strawberry,
pistachio, mocha, rose, chocolate and oreo

Sun Kyung also got me face masks for my
birthday. These ones feature ingredients from
around the world (supposedly ahah)

She also gave me coffee, pocky and this strawberry
alcoholic soda thing. It was pretty delicious. She said
it was her last precious can and she gave it to me
because I'm precious, so I'm not crying or anything.

After hanging out with Cesca Saturday, I left because she had to study. I got home and ended up watching a documentary about the Sewol ferry, the anniversary of which is coming up. Sad. But very interesting and frustrating. 

Then I continued watching the drama I'm currently marathoning, Signal. It's about a detective who finds a walkie talkie that lets him talk to a detective in the past, and with each other's help, they solve cold cases that couldn't be solved and also prevent the cases from becoming unsolvable. 

It's so compelling and good. Crime thriller dramas sometimes falter, but this one had me hooked right away and kept up the awesome, even if it did have me crying my eyes out every so often. Damn emotional stuff.

. 

On Sunday, I met up with Cesca after her test. We shopped around a bit and headed to dance class to learn the adorable Girl's Day song Darling, which was one of my spring/summer favorites 2 years ago. It's so catchy and adorable!

Sadly, after a relaxing and fun weekend, I'm off to school again. My newest co teacher is having some health issues and so I have a substitute this week. I'm selfishly thinking  "ugh whyyyy??" but I also am worried and I hope she is okay.. Send some good vibes for her~

The weather is warming up, so at least I can finally stop wearing 3 layers of clothes all the time! Here's to hoping the first real week of spring brings good things! 25 started off well, I hope it continues that way!

Pour One Out for the Costco Salad~

My classes finally started and I'm starting to get back in the routine. It seems a little harder this year, now that I've decided to leave in August... Have I mentioned that? I'm about 95% decided, and it's making things both easier and harder this new school year. I like all 3 of my co teachers, but I just don't think teaching elementary school English is for me for much longer. But man, leaving will be so hard... Just going to avoid thinking about it.

I was laughing at my 5th grade book for very specifically labeling
the East Sea as such, since it's a big deal that some places
call it the Sea of Japan

Cesca and I needed to make a Costco run this week, and for some reason, it was especially fun and enjoyable. We both have recently and inexplicably gotten obsessed with bagels and cream cheese, something that, as an expat, I'm used to. Since moving abroad, my cravings for random American things can pop out of nowhere. I didn't eat cream cheese much at home, but for some reason, I've been wanting it lately, and it tasted SUPER good when I finally got some. Weird, right?

Anyway, we found our bagels, bananas, peanut butter and other necessities, and then were wandering around, when I ran into one of my students. Thankfully, my wine was not yet in hand, but it was nice to awkwardly greet her mother, who said "Oooh that's your teacher. I didn't know who you were talking to! Hello!" AWK. 

We went to get cheap, delicious food court food and laughed about the immense amounts of onions, ketchup and mustard the Koreans were gathering. This concotion is affectionately known as the Costco Salad by expats here. 

Many people pile heaps onto their plates for relatively unknown reasons. 

is it a replacement side dish? Do Koreans just really like free
stuff? the world will never know.

For some reason, we found it immensely funny that day. We could not get a picture of the table just down the row from us, but the amount of onions that they grabbed, and subsequently wasted, was ridiculous.

Cesca mourns the wasted
costco salad that you can see in the background.

The rest of the week passed as it normally does, with Korean class, English class and lots of coffee. 

I had to introduce myself to my new 3rd graders, who are all curious about my age, which I told them was a secret. They seemed to like my cats, and a few of them were even surprised that I was not Korean hahaha. So cute. One of them even loudly proclaimed "I LOVE CHRISTINA TEACHER" after class. I know I will be exhausted teaching 6 classes of them, but they're adorable and I'm sure it will have it's cute moments. 

Because Cesca is studying for the TOPIK, we each spent a quiet Friday evening at home. I'm trying to prep for my own test in April (I'm shooting for level 4 before I leave, so I'll try in April and July if I don't pass), so I studied a bit and tidied up, I wish I could be more dedicated at school, but lately I've been worn out by new classes, new co workers and office politics and hecticness. Hopefully, it will calm down soon.

On saturday, we met up with Grace and her bro + bf for Sicilian food at the restaurant we know in town, where the owner remembered us even though it's been ages. That was cool, and delicious! The weather was finally nice enough that we could meander through hongdae, stopping at shops and booths as we pleased. We stopped for churros, cupcakes, and just to watch the dancers and performers. 

Then we went to a multi-bang. Bang means room, like noraebang means singing room. So at the multi bang, they have lots of options. You can watch movies, sing or play games. We opted to play Wii games for about 2 hours. It was a blast from the past and super fun!

Just dance 2

Concentrating hard on Mario Cart

It was a fun night. On Sunday, Cesca and I skipped dance class to go see Zootopia with Lauren and Ga Hyeon. The song wasn't that interesting this week, and a few of our friends couldn't go. Plus Ga Hyeon doesn't get a ton of days off that he can spend with us, so when he actually has free time that matches up with us, we want to make an effort to actually do something, since he works really hard at the hospital. Plus, I love seeing Lauren, so it seemed worthwhile. 

The movie was great, highly recommended!!!

Then we grabbed some Mexican food

Ga Hyeon's mango margarita looked great.
Mine was a bit meh but that's okay.
The food was good.

It was great to have spent the weekend with lovely friends, having fun and finally not freezing. Another week of school awaits, but spring is on its way and it's not pitch black when I leave for school in the morning, so things are looking up!

Here's to hoping my kids aren't super crazy this week, cause I have things to do and stuff to look forward to!

Happy almost spring!!!

~~

For some reason, I've been back in a Phantom of the Opera swing, so I've spent my week listening to the soundtrack, in various languages and various versions, while I've been working on stuff. Me. Listening to PotO. No surprises, right??

I love this song in Italian. So pretty~ It's been a while since I listened to anything other than Korean or English, but I remember most of the words~

Splende un sole in te che non tramonta :)

Gee Gee Gee Gee Baby Baby Baby

It'll be a short post this week as I only had 3 days of school. The beginning of the school year is always a bit hectic and stressful, but I am working with Young Ah and Sun Kyung again, and my new co teacher, Hyun Jung, really wanted to be the English teacher and she seems very nice. 

The first day on Wednesday was a bit of a blur...

we had to decorate for the first grader welcoming
ceremony

A lot of the day was spent getting my schedule ready. Thankfully, it seems to have worked out well. I have 22 class hours this semester, which means I don't have to do drama club!!!

Thankfully, my grades are all grouped.
It's boring but easier to teach the same thing
5 times in a row.

On Thursday, my cos and I went to the English room to clean it up, because they were building an elevator over break and it was a mess. Dust everywhere. Sigh. They hired a cleaner for the classrooms, but apparently the English room doesn't get the same treatment. Or it gets it way later, possibly. But we have classes tomorrow so we couldn't wait till then.

They also bought these horrencously red chairs
for the bi weekly staff meetings. Okaaaay

On Friday, we had a staff dinner to welcome the new teachers and celebrate the new school year. It was at a galbi restaurant, which is my favorite, so I was happy. Everyone was really nice to me and I got a lot of "I didn't know you were studying Korean" comments and such that usually come this time of the year. The new head teacher in the office even made a point to tell me that I'm the 5th native english teacher he's known, and I'm the prettiest. I would feel better if this wasn't coming from a man twice my age, but you know. I think he meant well. 

I won a cute umbrella in a raffle at dinner!

After dinner, Young Ah got roped into going to round 2 (noraebang) with the head teachers and a few others, so I went with her because the principal was like "I WILL SEE YOU TWO LATER" when she came around for soju shots at dinner. I sang a Korean song, Love Battery, which went well and so the principal (a few drinks deep, of course), came up to me and was hugging me and Young Ah and saying "I didn't know we'd be this cloooooooose" and such. Another head teacher told us that our friendship was nice to see, so that was fun.

I ended the evening by going out to tea with teacher's from my office. I can pretty much listen without feeling too lost in their conversations, but even so, 5+ hours of straight Korean was exhausting, but satisfying. I'm sad that my chances to have fun with my coworkers are winding down.

Thankfully, I could relax Saturday. We had plans in the evening, but from morning to late afternoon, it was raining so hard that going outside was not enticing at all. So I cleaned up some stuff in my apartment and lounged around till it was time to meet my friends. 

got to use my new umbrella~ hehe

Grace is finally back in Korea and her bro was visiting, and Ga Hyeon had the day off, so we all decided to grab some American BBQ at place that opened up in Mokdong.  

Round 2 Bingsu

It was fun to laugh and chat and eat delicious smoked pork. MMMM. 

Afterwards, the boys wanted to play pool.. so we went to a pool place (they're pretty common in Korea) and first watched the boys play the Korean version of the game. 

Then, when a classic table opened up, we tried our hands at the original pocketball. 

Ces and I ended up being on a team vs Grace, her BF and brother. 

I ended up getting a couple in, and after I made a particularly difficult shot, I got so excited I accidentally punched a hole in the ceiling with the pool cue. Oops. 

Post hole in ceiling. Trying to compose
myself. 

Grace scratched on her 8 ball shot, so Cesca and I won!!!

we got home to discover that we coincidentally wore the same
socks

We got home late, so we slept in Sunday, caught up on TV, had a rare food delivery mishap (ugh... don't even wanna talk about it) and then headed to dance class, where we learned part of Girl's Generation's Gee, which is arguably their most famous song. It was fast, fun and adorable!!!

A few friends were back that we hadn't seen in a bit, so it was so much fun!

We're not the best but we're cute and I love it. 

I'm ready for classes to start and to get into a routine at school. I'm happy I can see my students again! Bring it on first week of classes!!

~~

In Kpop news, I've been obsessed with Rainbow lately, especially their new song Whoo. They don't get the recognition they deserve.