My Second Summer

Summer was extremely hot. It's now September and still disgustingly hot and humid. It's also been way too rainy. Apparently, one of the rainiest summers Korea has had in decades. Thanks global warming!

I've come up with a bit of a bucket list for stuff I want to do in Korea before I leave. One of the things on my list was to go to the COEX Aquarium. I practically had to drag Em and Laura in with me, but then they had a great time. See, you should ALWAYS listen to The Dish.
The aquarium was quite interesting...






For the 4th of July, I decided to put a little picnic together in the park. We had a great time with great people. It was almost like home, minus the fireworks!




Now more pics of my kids :)




Love you all!

My 30th Birthday

Another birthday in Korea. Who would have thunk it? To top it all off, it was my 30th. Holy shit...I'm 30 years old. Really??? Anyway, back to this. My 30th had to be great. I didn't have my friends and family from home with me, but I celebrated with some awesome people. We began with dinner at the Novatel, which is this really great hotel in Gangnam.



We stayed at the Novatel a bit longer to enjoy the great cover band!



Then is was off to Rainbow for some hookah and Woodstock's for some partying.



So yeah, it was a great way to celebrate my induction into the dirty thirties! Next year, Vegas??????
Love you all!

May 2010

May was a very hard month for me here. I was extremely homesick and pretty much spent every weekend sitting at home feeling sorry for myself. It was sad, but I feel it was something I had to do to keep me moving along here. I could have easily hopped on a plane back home, but I didn't. That would have been insanely foolish of me.

So not many photos of fun things happening in May. However, I will post some photos of my super adorable students on a field trip we had.






Yay, for cute children!!!
Love you all!

Spring in Korea!!!!

Ok...MAJOR apologies for not updating in, oh, about 6 months. EEK! So, so sorry. We've got new teachers here who looked at my blog before coming, and so I am embarrassed for not keeping up with it. Please forgive me :)

So I stopped updating at the end of March. April was a great month! Spring came to Korea very, very late this year. So late, in fact, we thought it might never come. It was snowing here in April. This has been known to happen at home, but not here. Everyone was quite shocked.

Well, spring did decide to finally arrive...and spring in Korea means one thing: Cherry Blossoms! When they bloom, all is beautiful. A normal walk to work becomes great when you walk down the street surrounded by those beautiful white blossoms. The whole country smells wonderful! This spring, I decided to take a little trip down south to see the blosssoms. Stacy, Steve, and I joined a large group of people and went about 4 hours south to Gwangju. They say Gwangju is where the Lee family began in Korea. Lee is a very popular last name here...like Smith in America popular.

While in Gwangju, we rented bicycles and rode around the town. It was great, but by the end of the day, my ass hurt like hell! Here are some photos:

I also went to Everland again in April. What better way to spend a beautiful spring day than riding roller coasters with awesome people?!?! Em, Joel, and I met our Korean friend, Claire for this fabulous day! I think my favorite part was when Claire was holding our place in line and talked us into cutting about 200 Koreans in line to get on a roller coaster. This is obviously a huge DON'T in America. I can recall many a time when my mother bitched people out for trying to cut us in amusement park ride lines. In Korea, however, no one says a damn word! It was insane. We felt incredibly guilty for doing it, but they all let us do it like it was no big deal. It was kind of surreal in a way.




We also went into a bird sanctuary to feed some birds. At first, Em was a bit worried, but was soon having a blast.

April also brought to the Korean War Memorial Museum. Not as good as I thought it was gonna be, but still interesting.






Finally, I received my plaque for drinking all 55 Gecko's shooters. It only took me 3 months. It is an accomplishment I am quite proud of! haha


I also saw this really insane fire in Seoul.



There ya have it...my second April in Korea.
Love you all!

My new class.

So as most of you know, I now have a new kindergarten class. I went from teaching one of the lowest kindergarten classes (6-1) to now teaching the 2nd highest (7-3). I was a little nervous about it because there is a lot expected of these kids. Luckily, I only have 5 students. They are amazing and I love them already. They crack me up everyday. I have Sellina (who was in my class last year), Jaimie, Alex, Robert, and Zeki...yes, Zeki. Here are some photos of them on our last field trip.



I look forward to spending the next year with the little monsters!
My elementary classes are also pretty great. So far, no big behavior issues...not like last year! Things are good with work. I'm pretty damn happy with it right now!

Love you all!

Kickin' it in Gunsan one last time!

Well now it was time for Dan to move on from Gunsan...allll the way to Osan haha. Which is only a couple hours from Gunsan. We had to go big for Dan's sweep. Boy, did we go big. As a tribute to Dan and St. Patrick's Day, we got special t-shirts made and made lovely black and green tutus. Many of us completed the look with tights, socks, and other things. Here I am ready to party!

The gig was the same as last time: party at Delta, hop on a bus to America Town, eat, party, then back to Delta for more partying, 2am breakfast, and bed!
First was Delta.




Then America Town.




And back to Delta and breakfast!



Of course, we all had a blast! It was an awesome night...push it up!!

Love you all!