Semester Winding Down/Spending Time with Great People

As I'm writing this, a group of cats are YOWLING and HOWLING outside of my window. It sounds like something is dying. It must be mating season or something, but MY GOD are they LOUD. It's especially annoying when they do this at 3 am... Ah the struggles of city life, eh?

The end of the semester is always an interesting time here, because it's both easy and difficult at the same time. It's easy because classes are winding down, which means review lessons, role plays and speaking tests. It's difficult because speaking tests are the devil. I have five or six classes of each grade with about 25 students a class. I have to test them individually on their speaking abilities, which means I print out a bunch of pictures and ask them questions about the key phases we've learned. 

Imagine doing it for a week. I have to ask the same 10 or so questions each class to each student, and then give a grade. I'm pretty lenient with my grades, since they're kids, but man is it mind numbing. It also means I have little to prep for the week, besides test questions and filler lessons, which is kind of boring. 

Now, I'm not complaining, but I'm just saying, speaking test wear me out. But, I've already done 4th grade and part of 3rd, so I've got 5th, sixth and half of 3rd to go this week. Then it's a few filler lessons till a 10 day summer camp, and then FREEDOOOOOOM. 

Ronnie is coming to visit us here in Seoul and I'M SO EXCITED!!!

So that's the school stuff this week. Here are some pictures of my lovely life here. 

We had some 4th grade role plays to do this week, and some of my students got SUPER into the costumes. It was awesome.

His story was, you guessed it, Little Red Riding Hood

so cute

scary faces haha

On Tuesday, we didn't have Korean class because there was an extra Tuesday in the month, so instead, our class got together for a class dinner, because we have such fun together.

We have a nice mix in our class. Renny is from the UK, Thomas is
from Switzerland, Lauren is from FL and I'm from NY, which
are pretty different, USA wise.

Attempting Korean aegyo (cute gestures)

Our teacher and our two Japanese friends, Takashi and Tagaki

It was a fun night and we practiced lots of Korean. Really,
I promse!

Apparently making wishes is a Japanese thing, so we did it

I really love my class, so it was nice to spend lots of time with them!

Wednesday returned to normal, with one of my favorite lunches. My lunch lady is KILLING it this year. I'm surprised I haven't gained weight.

Quail eggs soaked in soy sauce and mandu soup. HEAVEN.
And delicious blueberries~~

On Thursday, I signed my life away for another year.
Looking forward to it, and also the future beyond!

On Friday, we met up with Sarah and another friend, Priscilla, to catch up, since it was Priscilla's birthday this week and we haven't seen each other in a while. We feasted on ddeokbokki and fried deliciousness, topped with boiled eggs. 

We were stuffed, but saved room for dessert at SulBing, a Korean dessert cafe that serves Bingsu, a traditional Korean dessert that usually consists of ice flakes, rickecakes and red bean, but has evolved to now feature whipped cream, fro yo and exotic flavors of deliciousness.

We limited ourselves to 2, but this place is so popular and widespread I may be tempted to stop in more often. I know Cesca is down for it.

Mango with whipped cream and cheesecake

Real Chocolate (not sure why they
specify the real part...?)

Both were deliciouuuus. 

Happy I got to spend time with Priscilla before she leaves in August

On Saturday, I didn't have plans for the morning, so I spent a lot of it reorganizing my apartment. I clean it almost every week, but the closet and my tables had kind of fallen into disarray. I was up early on Thursday morning (I had to be at school early for drama club practice... wamp) and I was surfing gmarket when I came across some home living organizer items, and kind of impulse bought a bunch. Korean delivery service is awesome, so by Friday evening they were at my door. 

So I spent Saturday reorganizing some drawers and cabinets and trying to make my living space less cluttered, which means a bunch of things are now just in baskets instead of piles, but it feels better, so I'm happy. But I'm also tempted to buy a bunch more organizer things... Hey, I'm gonna be here for another year, I should keep it better organized, right??

In the evening, we got all dolled up to go out to Gangnam for Janell's birthday. One lost reservation later, we were happily seated in the restaurant with minimal issues. It was fun to see some friends I haven't seen in a while, and to meet some more of Janell's friends, who were nice and fun. I even met her trainer, who I'm super impressed by. I'm also impressed Janell actually goes to a trainer, she's that dedicated haha. 

we had an awesome time!

Part of Janell's birthday included clubbing in Gangnam, which I've never done. We even secured a VIP table, so that was a nice experience. 

I'm not really one for clubbing, since the real party doesn't get started till well past my bedtime (give me a break, I wake up at six am and teach small children), and I don't really like aimlessly walking around getting bumped by drunk people looking for places to kind of dance and get bumped by more drunk people, or having to shout to be heard, but this club turned out pretty cool, because it had lots of different zones. It even had a pool! 

The main room was packed

So, since EDM isn't really my style (Mom and Dad, that means electronic dance music and they usually play it at clubs and you kind of just bounce to it), we ended up dancing in the hip hop room, which had more recognizable music. It was fun to dance with my friends and I actually ended up having a really good time, despite my general disposition of not liking rooms packed full of people. Maybe riding crazy crowded buses is helping that haha.

In true How I Met Your Mother fashion, Ces and I left shortly after 2am (nothing good happens after 2 am) because the smoke was starting to bother our eyes (there aren't any smoking rules in clubs, so you can light up whenever and wherever). Seriously, if felt like someone was chopping onions in the room. Regardless, we had an awesome time, and I wouldn't mind going every so often. I can't believe people make it an all the time thing, but to each their own! Happy Birthday Janell!

We headed to my place and slept like rocks. We got up and were in pretty good shape, so we bummed around a bit in lazy Sunday fashion and then headed out to get food, where we were stopped by a little old Korean grandma at the crosswalk. She asked us if we could understand Korean, and we said a little. I thought she was gonna ask for directions or something, but she just turned to us and said "You two are just so pretty. I wanted to tell you." to which we responded with bashful giggles and thank yous. It was soooo cute!!! Totally made my day.

After some lunch and hanging out, we headed to dance class, where we were not very good at but had fun with Taeyang's Ringa Linga, a song I really like. 

I'm just not that good at this style of dancing haha. I doubt I'll fare much better with next week's, but I just keep telling myself it's good exercise, and I CAN actually do some other dances pretty well, like Miss A and BigBang's Bang Bang Bang. 

I got home and ate some dinner, caught up on my drama and then sat down to write this blog for you lovely readers. I've got a week of normal Korean classes and speaking tests ahead of me, with another good weekend to follow! Can't wait~~

Also quick shoutout to my Daddy-o! His birthday is tomorrow!! Love you daddy!!!

~~~

BigBang had another part of their comeback released, and I like every song better than the last. I'm 99.7 % sure Cesca is gonna post Sober, so I'll post this one, cause I've been listening to it nonstop. 

If You is a slow and mournful song, but it's so peaceful and calming too, even though it's so sad. 

I don't know how they do it every time...

사랑하는 빅뱅~~

This week appears to have been the week of weird lunches, most that I really liked, one that I was very o.O about it.

It was also a very standard "Go to work, go to class, do homework, repeat repeat repeat" week, so I don't have much to say about the school week. 

I love chicken and quail eggs (top right) and the soup is potatoes
and some sort of ricecakes that are awesome. LOVE IT

Carbonara pasta for special lunch!

Celebrating payday with some delicious BBQ

Cesca and I have been wanting these
hats that say waygookin on them for a while.
It means foreigner. 

Ok seriously how is this something they can serve
in school?!?!? If my handler hadn't warned
me about the bones, I would have been in trouble.

New flavored sojus that I really want to try. 

On Saturday, I woke up bright and early and met Lauren, Cesca and Ga Hyeon at the clinic near Lauren's house so we could get our medical checks done for our renewal.

the buses have installed hand sanitzer in the
wake of MERS

We had to get our temps checked and
wear masks before we got to the clinic.

They have reading glasses for you at the hospital
while you're filling out forms!

The experience went smoothly for me, mostly (the nurse even said I have good blood pressure, huzzah!) but poor Cesca and her difficult to find veins proved a challenge. She didn't look so good when she got her blood taken, but thankfully Ga Hyeon was with us and insisted to a nurse that she be given a place to lie down.  

After a nice lunch and chat with Lauren and Ga Hyeon, I went home and intended to do some cleaning that I normally do on Saturday mornings, but apparently not eating, being hot and getting blood drawn wore me out, so I just took like a 2 hour nap and then got ready to head out again. 

It was our friend Hanh's birthday, so we headed to Itaewon for a night on the town!

Hanh's friend brought a bunch of ring pops for us from Canada

Poor cesca's was broken

Birthday cake drink for the birthday girl!

I saw a bunch of friends I don't normally see, so it was a really great night!

On Sunday, Cesca and I lazed around cause we got home late Saturday and were tired, and then we went to dance class, which we were highly anticipating, because we learned the dance to Bigbang's BANG BANG BANG. 

The dance to this song is energetic but also not excessively complicated, so we actually learned the whole thing.



It was fun and awesome and I can't wait for the real video our studio took to come out!

pretending like we're baller waygookin

we had so much fun

messing around after class 

Of course I spent sunday night winding down and attempting to paint my nails with a new kit I got from Daiso that's supposed to make you have like, gradient nails. I'm not that good at it yet haha

After finally catching up on Penny Dreadful, I also spent a good portion of my weekend starting a drama my co teacher recommended, 사랑하는 은동아 (Saranghaneun Eun Dong-ah). It's a melodrama, which means I've cried a bunch watching it because I get easily emotionally invested, even though the story is predictable. 

The title means "Beloved Eun Dong"
or "My Love Eun Dong"

It's a really intense and beautiful story (of course, with some tropes) about a boy and a girl who meet in 1995 after the boy almost hits the girl with his motorcycle. He feels indebted to her for hurting her, and so he wants to repay her by helping out. They develop a close friendship and start to have young love feelings for each other that they don't quite understand yet, when, suddenly, Eun Dong disappears without a trace. 

Following Eun Dong's dream, the boy, Hyun Soo, attempts to become an actor, because he wants to find Eun Dong. He struggles for 10 years, wondering if Eun Dong was happy and grew up well. After not doing so well in his attempts at stardom, he enters the military to do his mandatory service time and, by chance, happens upon Eun Dong once again. The two rekindle their friendship and it quickly develops into more, when, suddenly and inexplicably, Eun Dong disappears.

Using his raw emotions and heartbreak for his work, Hyun Soo (now named Eun Ho, a name Eun Dong once said she liked), makes it big and becomes a famous actor. Convinced he can love no one else, he sets out to use his fame to find his beloved Eun Dong. 

Eun Ho hires a ghost writer, Jung Eun, to write the autobiography for him and to publish the book, and through audio files and songs, reminisces about the times he shared with Eun Dong, hoping to find her again. 

If you know kdramas, you can guess who Eun Dong is just by the description of the show, but I'm still hooked and can't wait to keep watching. 

That's about it this week!

It's almost July, which means more hot weather, English camp (ugh) and new Bigbang songs( yay!!).

I heard it was a super exciting week in America, and I'm glad we're changing some things for the better. Equality is a long way away, but we're taking steps and that's huge. Fighting!!!

Love and support to all of my beloved friends and family!

~~

AOA had a comeback this week that I really like. It's a good summer song, and the video is cute,  though AOA is a sexy concept group, so there the requisite boob and butt focus... I actually know one of the guys who got to be in the video- he was at my orientation. Small world! 

C-R-A-Z-Y (미쳐)

Despite the title of my post this week was pretty straightforward and simple. More on the crazy later. My kickball game got cancelled because of MERS, my classes are off schedule but that's ok, and it's hot and monsoon rainy here. That's probably the worst. Like, normally when it rains, it gets cooler. But not now. Nope. Now it just stays hot AND is rainy and dumb. Wamp.

The semester is sort of winding down at school. We have about 5 weeks, left, 4 of them teaching, since subject teachers usually don't have class the last week(ish) of classes. I also have summer camp to prepare for, but I hope that won't be too bad and that I'll have fun students to work with. 

I can't believe it, but this week was my 22 months in Korea. It's been almost 2 years. Some days it feels like forever, and sometimes I think, "where did all the time go?"

My Korean class readings have gotten way longer.
I'm so excited I can read and understand this much!

It was a pretty normal week, no surprise class cancellations or anything, which is pretty rare. I taught third grade about emotions, fourth grade about jobs, fifth grade about culture/customs around the world (filler lesson), and fifth grade about directions. Sometimes I wonder if I'm really making a difference in their English, but then I get to smile when the girls cleaning the English room won't stop asking me questions or when they say hi after school. Hopefully their fear of foreigners is mostly gone, at the very least. 

Special lunch day (Wed) ice cream!!!!
Knock off Dippin Dots. YUM

Because I, like everyone else I know, spent this week marathoning Orange is the New Black until way too late at night, I was super tired on Friday (plus I had a headache from some annoying 3rd graders and staring at my computer too much), so I just chilled at home and watched Penny Dreadful. On Saturday, Cesca and I met up to go to Costco for some necessities (like bagels and peanut butter), and then we met up with Lauren for dinner. The weather was crappy, and at at least 2 points in the morning, the thunder was SO LOUD that it made me jump and I almost fell out of my bed. Ugh. I hate monsoon and storm season. 

Cesca's "OMG this escalator is long" face

We wanted to try an Italian place, but I guess it was under construction, so we decided on Mexican instead. 

Tacos, burritos and a quesadilla later, we
were stuffed

After dinner, we all met up with Sarah in Itaewon and toasted to her getting into school in Germany. I'm sad she's leaving Korea, but I think the change will be good for her. Her school is crazy and not nice, so I don't think she could stand another year there. Wishing her luck!

Cesca had coupons to Emart, so we decided that a late night trip would be less stressful than going during the day, so we went on the way home.

The most poet toilet seat cover ever.
such great spelling

We got lots of goods at Emart, then headed to her apartment. 

We bummed around in the morning watching some Korean variety TV, and then we went and got crepes before dance class, because we've been talking about getting crepes for weeks and haven't done it because the timing never worked. 

Cesca and I were being dumb so we took a lot of pictures. 

The title of this string of photos is "Do another pose."

Another one

Do another 

SWITCH

Again

Do something else

Do another

And then we had 2 crepes so of course needed to take more pictures

At dance class, we finally learned another girl group dance, which I think tends to be easier than the crazy guy dances we've been learning lately. This one, 4Minute's Crazy, was hard, but still manageable and I think we were able to kill it in the end.



This is the dance. It's awesome. We had a great time, so we treated ourselves to chimaek after haha. We're so healthy.

The MERS scare is subsiding, with only about 3 new cases this weekend and no more deaths (I think there were about 25 deaths in total and over 150 infected), so the numbers are slowing down and hopefully the paranoia will cease. Hopefully the hygiene practices will continue though. Seriously. No more coughing on my face on the subway please. 

So, another normal week lies ahead. We're learning an awesome song next week in dance class, so I'm super excited. It's also payday this week, which is always awesome. I'll be busy the next few weekends with friend's birthdays, so hopefully I can rest up this week before the craziness starts. 

Hope the weather isn't too weird back home and that everything is going smoothly for you all, wherever you are!

~~

I love this cute, adorable song by a newer group called Lovelyz. I've been listening to it all week.