Everland Halloween Festival

Last year I was dying to go to Everland's Halloween celebration, but couldn't get anyone interested enough. This year, things are different. Two awesome ladies were just as excited as me to go experience all the Spook-tacular Magic of October in Everland!

It was as silly and magical and fantastic as I had expected! Of course, nothing was scary. It was just cuddly pumpkins and cute ghosts. And it was great.



The Dish and I, getting eaten by a giant pumpkin:


My awesome dates: Tricia and Emily (3):


It was a little too cool for a water ride, so Korean ingenuity kicked in - they covered each seat with these big velcro vinyl sheets!


Plus, Harry Potter even made an appearance!


In other news, we're still getting all geared up for Halloween in Kindergarten. The kids keep telling me that they've got these terrifying costumes planned so they can scare ME in the Haunted House (Eileen even told Tyler Teacher today that she was going to hide in the corner and trip him when he jumps out to scare her, hahaha).

Speaking of children saying awesome things, my kids constantly surprise me. Sun Q asked me the other day, "Teacher! Do you know what love is? Love is a very dangerous thing!" Also, while they were picking their seats on the mat for story time, three of the girls were fighting over who got to sit next to Sun Q. He looked up at me with this blushing grin and said, "I guess they all love me!" and shrugged his shoulders :)

And while we were writing about our favorite activities, Eileen asked me, "Teacher, how do you spell 'Servant of Evil'?" I almost fell over... A 7-year-old wants to spell Servant of Evil?! I asked her why she would want to spell that, and she said her cousin in Canada told her that was the name of the scary movie they liked... I told her "Let's just write 'scary movies.'"

That's the update for now. Please leave comments. I'm begging for them, people! And more updates soon - this weekend is The Dish's big surprise!!

Love you all!

Fall...again...

I can't believe it's been over a year since I moved to Korea. It's certainly gone by too fast, and it's sort of blowing my mind that I only have about 4 months left...

It's fall in Korea, again... I will definitely miss how beautifully and gradually the seasons change here. We had Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) recently, so the kids wore their hanbok again:

The Class:


The Girls:


The Boys:


The girls showed me how they bow to their elders on Chuseok in return for money (I didn't have any to give them, haha)


And my most favorite student finally came back from being in Canada for nearly 3 months! I missed Eileen SO MUCH!


If you're bored, go check out last October's Chuseok post and look at how much they've changed in a year... they're getting so big!

We're also gearing up for Halloween again. You may remember last year's epic failure of a song... This year we're going for gold. We're singing a song called "Creeping Creeping" (to the tune of "Are You Sleeping") and they've mastered singing in a 4 part round, complete with choreography! Cross your fingers for us!

Also, with the change in weather came a deep-seated ache for football. Especially with the Favre drama. Lo and behold, I was able to watch the first battle between Favre's Vikings and Rodgers' Packers...IN A BAR! ON A BIG SCREEN TV! It felt like I was back in the States!





Other than that, life's been pretty routine here. I've just been having good fun with great friends:










And cleaning up after filthy kids :)


We've got some great things planned for the rest of October, though, so hopefully by November 1 I'll have some more blogging to do :) Next weekend we're going to Everland for their big Halloween extravaganza, then the weekend after we have a big surprise planned for The Dish (because we love her). Then it'll be Halloween, and I can promise great pictures from that day!

Love you all!

ps - if I'm not posting something you think I should be paying more attention to, let me know. Now that the novelty's worn off, I'm kind of at a loss!

Kenny G

In my smartest class, there's a student named Kenny. His English is amazing, we discuss Harry Potter quite often, and he's a funny guy. For whatever reason, his name on the attendance sheet is actually Kenny G. I think this is because his last name begins with the Korean letter that could be K or G, and there was already another Kenny at the school.

Anyways, we sometimes call him Kenny G, just for fun.

I thought he knew about the "real" Kenny G already. Funny enough, he didn't. As I learned when we got our latest issue of Kids' Times, and the last article was a huge two-page, full color spread about Mr. Saxophone himself. Of course, Kenny was impressed enough to mention it again today.

"Teacher! I can't believe I'm named after the greatet sexicon player ever!"

I don't know what a sexicon player is, but I imagine it's something all boys aspire to be. Usually his English is impeccable, but we all make mistakes... and his was HILARIOUS!

Speaking of English, my friend Paul, another teacher here who also speaks Korean, was walking home last night, when a group of extremely soju-drunk Koreans walked out of a bar in front of him. He heard one of the men say to the women (in Korean) "Oh look, a foreigner. I speak English well!"

As Paul approached the man said, "Hello!" Paul replied, "Hello." After a pause, the man said enthusiastically, "Cafe Latte!"

Apparently his English IS great! What else could Paul do but say right back, "Cafe Latte!"

Love you all!

My kids are sweet... Mostly...

My kindergarten class and I have become extremely close. We're like a little family. We know each other's quirks and pet peeves and how to irritate one another and how to make each other laugh, cry, or pull out hair. But mostly we love each other :)

Last Friday, we were coloring after lunch. My kids had rocked it out all week, and we had nothing to do but enjoy some music and coloring time (ps - they're particularly fond of Ghostbusters and Yellow Submarine). As we were coloring, Andy said, "I think Teacher is beautiful."

So sweet. Who doesn't love a spontaneous compliment?

Not to be out-done, the others started chiming in with "Teacher is an angel," and "Teacher is a beautiful angel," and "Teacher is a beautiful princess angel!" (Can you see why I love this job?!?!)

So I was basking in the warmth of the love of 8 six-year-olds when I got into the office after Kindergarten, when Sally popped her head in the west door of the teacher's room and shouted, "Teacher is beautiful!" Some of my co-workers were in the office and I could feel their envy when they all said, "Awwwww..."

10 seconds later, Sally opened the east door of the office and this time I heard her shout:

"JUST KIDDING!"

I think it's true that each of us has had quite an effect on our students, and you can see each Teacher's personality reflected in the atmosphere and behavior of their class... I just regret that I'm so damn funny! :)

Love you all!

Bali Photos

I've become a terrible blogger. Have some pictures.



























Hope you enjoyed them!
Love you all!

Bali Part One

I've been too busy recovering from the most amazing vacation ever to post, but now I'm ready to relive some of the incredible moments from this fantastic time. (Please excuse any redundance in adjectives, as my vocabulary isn't large enough to come up with that many effusively positive words, haha)

So the vacation began, as they do nowdays, in the Incheon International Airport. It just so happened there were 6 of us that knew each other, all on the same flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, so the wait was far from boring :)

Waiting to board (and showing off my blonde locks, hee hee):


Our supervisor made us promise to wear our masks, so we wouldn't get swine flu (for more on why masks are ridiculous for preventing ANYTHING on flights, e-mail me), so here's our proof picture:


The flight to Kuala Lumpur was about 6 hours, but I was able to sleep a bit and read a lot. We had about 24 hours in KL, so Stacy, Steve, and I had booked an evening tour, including a Hindu Temple and a buffet dinner showcasing Malaysian and Indonesian food and talented dancers.

Statue in the temple:


The Petronas Towers, as seen from our restaurant (I was supposed to take another tour in the morning to visit these, but was too sleepy and living it up taking baths!)


Some of the dancing:


For the tour, we were picked up by a very excited and talkative Malaysian man. He taught us how to properly pronounce vowels and was constantly answering one or the other of his cell phones. Plural. I hadn't realized before we got there that in Malaysia they drive on the left side of the road. Actually, I didn't realize until I was trying to get in the front seat and the driver kept saying "You, front seat, you front seat!" (with me all the while thinking "THAT'S WHAT I'M TRYING TO DO!") I realized my mistake when I saw the steering wheel right in front of the seat I was trying to sit in, hahaha.

After the tour, we were pooped, so we went back to our hotel and went to bed. This king-sized bed is part of the reason I missed my morning tour:


The next day I caught my flight to Bali... it was maybe another 2-3 hours. I was excited to see, when I exchanged my money, that their currency was way prettier than the US or Korea. The driver, Bagus, from our hotel in Jimbaran (The Puri Bambu), picked me up and kept apologizing for his bad English while I tried to talk to him.

When I got to the Puri Bambu, I sighed heavily, and was pretty sure I was in Eden. The reception area, the restaurant, all were open air. I had never before been anywhere where good weather was such a guarantee, they didn't even build walls! Our room was sparse, but nice, and had a great private patio in front:



The grounds near the pool:


I couldn't shake the feeling of peace and happiness that had sunk in. I knew already it was going to be a fantastic vacation. I went to the restaurant and had some dinner, brought a cocktail back to my patio, and waited with a smile for Audra to arrive.

That's all for tonight, folks. But enjoy this preview picture of part two:

Audra with Monkeys


Love you all!