oh, hey!

back to school!

we started school this week, so things have suddenly picked up again. some new students, and getting to see all the students again was fantastic. but getting back to planning and five classes a day was surprisingly exhausting. as well as moving to a new apartment yesterday. i now have an oven! amazing. there seem to be very few around here.

what the moment #1-5: they tore down part of the building next to our school (it was a restaurant) and are now constructing at all hours of the day. this whole week, in the middle of class, i would be talking about something and i would hear the D-D-D-D-D-DRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE of the drill from outside. wow.

we have a (surprise) day off tomorrow!

sometimes-i-do-things-to-watch-my-students-faces #1: i taught about Russia in geography this week and capped off the last class with an abridged version of Bear Gryll's Man vs. Wild in Siberia. if you haven't seen this show (which i actually hadn't until i came here and watched one on youtube - they're all on there), this guy, bear, uses his survival skills to show you how to survive in the most extreme situations. in this particular episode, he drank fresh yak blood and ate yak eyeball. they also got to see him ride a self-made deerskin toboggan and jump onto a moving freight train. it was fantastic to see and hear their reactions.

famous-by-association #1: about two weeks ago i discovered that a very famous k-pop star is the same kid i went to elementary school with and some of my students FREAKED out when they found out. they take their celebrities very seriously here.

and that's about it. really.

if you had any doubt it your mind that YOU SHOULD GO SEE JONSI ON APRIL 9TH OR 10TH...this is what the show is going to be like...

Jónsi live show by 59 Productions from Jónsi on Vimeo.

miss you. ride my bike for me, will you? it's lonely in my garage!

if you could have one superpower...

new student camp week!

last thursday we were informed that we were to teach prospective new students this week. lucky for me, i got conversation class (while other unfortunate souls were stuck with the likes of science and math), so i got to play pictionary and 20 questions and talk with my students all week. not a bad deal.

a LOT better than sitting at a desk for eight hours doing "lesson plans" like last week.

a friend took me to get a guitar last week and so i'm spending some free time after work learning to play! i like having the creative outlet and its a good break from the everyday piano-hymns at school.

today in class, i had them ask and answer "what if" questions and the most interesting was

"if you could have one superpower, what would it be?"

the most common answer: "invisibility". if that doesn't give an accurate social commentary on the average korean high school student, i don't know what does.

best meeting ever #1: the weekly friday afternoon meeting is lost on most teachers. as the final stepping stone to the weekend, hardly anyone actually pays attention. today was more amusing than usual. we actually have assigned seats but today a few of us rebels chose to sit in the very back pew (against the back wall) just for fun, at least ten rows behind everybody else. text messages and teary-eyed laughter are all i fondly remember of the meeting.

quote of the week: "aww you're such a good student!" "good teacher makes a good student" :)

and definitely the song of the week, can't stop listening. boy lilikoi - first release from jónsi's (yep, from sigur rós) solo project to be released april 5th (and he's playing the the showbox sodo april 9th AND 10th...you should go because i can't!)...and he sings in english...a soaring and majestically epic song...



great is thy faithfulness.

winter camp...

some new photos (they start on page four of this album)!


home from winter camp! three weeks out of the city made most of the teachers almost crazy. i was only there for a little more than two, but it is good to be back.

for all of you that were hoping life would get a little more unexciting, you got your wish :)

back to teaching, back to routine. didn't get stuck anywhere, didn't have too many adventures, but we still had some good times.

highlights:

- three days of (free!) skiing with the students. the ski resort, however, was tiny and not all that challenging (which was apparent by the fact that i only rode the diamond runs and they still weren't all that exciting). but it was a good starter slope for the kids and even for me since it has been awhile since i have been on skis. it got really cold the last day, but the first two days were fun and it was a nice break. and every time we got on or off the lift, the lift attendent would practice their english on us.

- playing soccer almost every day in the afternoon (between classes) in the (very packed down) snow with students.

- saturday hike which turned into a snow fight.

the whole hiking group...

- "I've Never" with E5 students...falling off of chairs.

- fourth-grade Kelly taught me Korean one day and then she numbered the paper and made me take a test :)

- catching up on some mars hill sermons - "God doesn't need us, but he loves to use us so we can share in his joy"


- seeing bucheon students and making some new student friends

i will miss them (and many more)


now it is back to the office : / but hopefully i will get a lot of planning done before the semester starts!

how are you? i miss you.

ode to a friend.

 hey.

it has been an intense week.

the fact that i am not yet at winter camp will be explained in a bit, but i need to take some time first for my co-worker steve na.

yesterday, my roommate told me that steve fell ill at camp and was sent to the hospital where he lost consciousness. he died today.

because i haven't talked to anyone at camp directly, i don't know the full story, but the whole thing is very sudden and shocking. the picture above is one i took at our thanksgiving dinner, just over a month ago. i didn't know steve all that well, but he was a good teacher and led the youth group at hanyoung church. please please please pray for his family and the teachers here that were close to him. he will be missed, but he's with Jesus and I'm sure he's never been better.

any transition i make to the events that transpired this past week before all of this doesn't really fit, but it's quite a story.

i set off for the airport last tuesday with only sketchy details of meeting at the beijing airport and no address for the place i was to be staying. let's just say i won't do that again.

the subway ride to the incheon airport was beautiful with a light icing of snow in low morning light. we took off on time for the short one-and-a-half-hour flight to shenyang. not long into it, the pilot informed us that we were to land in qingdao, the shenyang airport closed due to snow. when we landed, they made us sit on the plane for two hours in case shenyang opened soon. we watched all of julie & julia before they let us off.

looooong story short, three other foreign English teachers in Korea on that flight were connecting to Beijing and, not knowing when the airport would open, we decided to get tickets for a direct flight to Beijing from Qingdao instead of waiting to go to Shenyang first, with the promise that our other flight would be refunded. having those three others was quite a blessing, as well as seeing one of my students at the Qingdao airport as he was flying in to be with his family over break. we made it to Beijing five hours later than scheduled and i hoped that the friends meeting me there would not have been waiting that whole time. since i knew my friend anna was flying in sometime later that night, i decided to wait and try to find her. i had no idea what flight she was on, and after two hours i realized there were also two other terminals. it turns out i was in the wrong one and the subway was closed by now, not that i had an address to look for anyway. or a phone number to call. (by the way, in the qingdao airport, i had access to internet and i looked for clues on how i might get there and sent an e-mail informing them about the delay).

[mom, you should probably close your eyes right about now]

so i spent the night in the airport, which was really only about three hours, wrestling with cold and dozing every once in awhile in a lounge chair in a cafe area. there were quite a few other people in the same area too and although no flights were coming in, it turns out that airports never sleep and i didn't really either.

[proceed with caution]

once the subway opened, i took the three trains to East Gate of Peking University stop because one of the only things i knew was that the friend (kyle) was teaching english at a program somehow related to the university. i made it there (p.s. i was carrying my backpacking pack on my back and my north face daypack on my front this whole time) and walked around until i found a building with a computer which happened to be the library. i had to get a visitor library card, scanned my way in, and found someone to get me log-in information and paid my 5 kuai to use the internet for an hour. i looked everywhere until i finally re-checked my e-mail and found that there was an address at the bottom of an e-mail (in the signature). despite the travel stress and the lack of sleep, i hadn't been extremely worried about the situation but was so relieved that i wouldn't be spending a week in china wandering around by myself (which, of course, i knew wouldn't happen). twelve hours after i landed in beijing, i was finally headed, by way of taxi, to at least the right area. the driver dropped me off in front of a gate and i wandered around some buildings, going into a few. the first person i found knew kyle and pointed me straight toward his room and you should have seen the look on his face when he opened the door...they had NO idea how they were going to find me.

[okay, mom, you're safe from here]

my less-than-a-week in Beijing was exactly the vacation i needed. it was windy and cold for the most part, but spending time with amazing people and seeing how God was working in and through this English program was extremely refreshing. of a very much abridged version of my trip, the highlights include:

<--kyle, anna, chen

- meeting kyle's co-workers. they live in a dorm and the community within those walls is incredible and something i've been missing. i felt so at home right away and that is rare for me. i came knowing one person well and it was hard to leave all those new friends behind.

- making pancake shapes with erichen. (that's not really his name, it's eric chen, but in my head i usually just squash them together.)

- spooning with anna after a really cold day at the Wall.

- geeking out photo-style with kyle.

- new year's eve broccoli pizza and catchphrase. weird (different), but very very good. (i missed the rydmans, though!! we even played apples to apples and i thought of you guys!)

- God's provision and travel mercies, to say the least.

- throwing a disc in tian'anmen square AND inside the walls of the forbidden city :)

- climbing and photoing a new (for me) part of the Great Wall with great people.

- all four of us wearing panda hats throughout the forbidden city and on our rickshaw ride.

- maple twist/cafe latte night, staying up late enjoying and talking to wonderful new friends and old.

- a "fructiferous bargaining sesh" at the silk market (i wish i made up that phrase, but i got it from the insider's guide to beijing the first time i was there). i even got a death threat; it was that good. 

if you would like to see some China photos, please click here!

i wish that was all of the adventure because i had plenty at this point, but getting back to korea is a whole 'notha story. can you handle it?

[mom, maybe you should just skip to the last paragraph]

the night before, it started snowing lightly. after what happened with my flight to shenyang, i asked with a slight worry, "is it supposed to snow all night? i hope nothing happens to my flight tomorrow..." "it is supposed to snow maybe 9 millimeters" "okay, that sounds good". 

after sleeping for about two hours (as a result of staying up late and having to leave at 6 am), i stepped outside with my bags into at least three inches of snow. i got to the airport easily via a taxi and an airport shuttle bus (which was much easier than carrying my baggage onto three different subway lines, although cold because they apparently don't use heat on buses in china).

checking in at around 8 am for my 10 am flight to Dalian (followed by a 6 pm flight to Seoul), the lady behind the counter said "maybe come back tomorrow". "what?" "flight is delay, so wait one hour and ask manager". after one hour "dalian, no time. wait one hour". this happened a few times. finally, at 11, "dalian (yeah, i didn't even have to ask. he remembered me), check in". i checked in and headed to gate 26 where i was for the next seven hours. i read two books, ran down half the battery on my iPod, wandered around, ate the weird tv-dinner-style-food they gave us, watched the never-ending
steady snow fall, and took a few photos before they suddenly announced that they were taking us to a hotel to take a rest. waiting in line to check in to the hotel, an older woman i had seen at the airport asked if i wanted to stay with her. i hadn't talked to her at all before, but i said okay. that night i had dinner at a very decent hotel with my roommate, an Australian English teacher in Dalian and a Norwegian businessman. it was nice to have someone to talk to and they both have fascinating stories. it was nice to be able to take a wonderful, warm shower and sleep well after a whole day in the airport.

the next morning, we sat at gate 37 for about seven hours. i found a newspaper which confirmed that this unexpected snowstorm is one of the biggest and coldest for at least fifty years. this airport time was better because i had a friend who would watch my stuff so i didn't have to take it with me every time i had to get something (like i did the day before) and it's odd but i knew (by face) almost all of the people waiting for our flight (the airport was crazy because most flights were delayed the day before) and which of them could speak English. every time they announced something about our flight, it was of course in Chinese so i would watch for reactions from those people. people started yelling at about 2 pm and we were on a plane at about 7, though we didn't actually take off until about 8. we got TWO chinese-tv-style meals in the airport this time. we finally reached Dalian at 9:30 and i said good-bye to my roommate who said i could visit her in Australia and then i ran around that airport trying to figure out my next flight. we left Dalian for Seoul on a midnight flight on a quarter-full plane and touched down at 2 am, korea time (one hour later than china). because it was so late, it made sense to once again find a nice chair or bench in the airport until the subway opened at 5:30. the seoul airport is pretty dang cool and after walking around for awhile, i found a winner - the stargarden. sheltered, slightly warmer, and empty save for a man sleeping on a bench at the other end, i was able to sleep for at least an hour here before i woke up freezing a little before 5 am.

[alright you should be okay now]

i took the subway and walked back to bucheon through the snow-covered city, getting in at 7:15 am, only 46 hours after i had planned to be back. i wasn't able to contact anyone at school while i was in the airport, but i knew i had missed the bus to Cheong-Cheun, where our winter camp is being held, and i called our vp who told me to hang out here for awhile. there was a record snowfall here as well and the roads are a mess. i still haven't gotten a time for when i will be heading out there, but i think i'm leaving sometime tomorrow (which is really later today...). honestly, i'm glad i had a bit of time to recover from the whole ordeal. i lost a lot of sleep over those two days and was fairly sick on top of it, catching some sort of something in china that made me even lose my voice for half a day. i'm feeling a lot better now and i'm pretty much packed and ready to go. although i have been to the campus before, i have idea what to expect. new students, new classes, plus this unexpected passing of one of our teachers...it will be a much different atmosphere.

phew. now i know what it really means to have a flight delayed. so many new experiences and we're less than a week into 2010. in all of this, God has been so faithful. i never felt in danger, was hardly ever frustrated, i just kind of rolled with it. i even found a lot of it funny. i was exhausted, for sure, but it is definitely a story, if nothing else.

it's going to be a good year.

tis the season!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

it is currently one a.m., christmas day! and i'm wide awake.

it's been a whirlwind around here lately.

the christmas concert was fun! i really didn't have to do all that much as an announcer; i really only had the opening and closing lines. i wasn't nervous which was extremely surprising and also a blessing - i was able to just have fun with it. the students did a GREAT job, especially considering the long day of practice they endured. i was especially proud of Johnny, who has a BEAUTIFUL voice, who sang a solo and Noah who blew me away with her piano solo. the whole night was joyful and a bittersweet end to the semester. it is hard saying goodbye, even for just two months.

"and for our final performance, all teachers and students will join in one voice to praise God. let's give them a big round of applause" - that was my line right before the last two songs. every single student from both KICS campuses and all teachers sang on stage - you can see a few of them in this picture (this is just some of the Bucheon boys!). we sang this song called "i am" which i had only heard twice before (and therefore had to just pretend i was singing parts of it) but it sounded amazing. the elementary students sounded like little angels :) and it was a powerful performance i was glad to be a part of.

we watched a lot of movies during the last few weeks. the students that weren't practicing for the concert had to go to class, so we mostly hung out. the very last day, after the concert, the ninth graders had a bit of a photoshoot (see link above for some posted on facebook). kaka took some great photos! he's a natural.

with some of the ninth grade boys...exploding through the doorway into my homeroom...




tonight, we had a christmas eve party at church! it was a vastly different celebration than what i am accustomed to, but it was full of joy and good friends. bible trivia game, a hymn contest, and a gift exchange. i got a round, yellow pillow. this past week, i also got to attend a christmas party at a co-workers house (catchphrase and american food) and go to a multi-cultural church's christmas performance which was cool.

the foreign teachers singing "the first noel" in the hymn contest. we won socks, just for trying :) we didn't practice at all because we didn't know about until half an hour before. typical.

once again, MERRY CHRISTMAS. christmas is definitely the hardest time to not be around family, but we have our own little dysfunctional family here in bucheon. i miss you all and i pray that this season will be a blessing as you bless those around you.

"...Day and night, without ceasing they sing, 'Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God the Almighty, who was and is and is to come'..." - Revelation 4:8

"in order to form a more perfect onion..."

shenanigans?!?

the title of this blog post was one of the gems written on a final test given in American Government. i take great joy in quoting my students whenever possible. i had my class memorize the preamble to the US constitution a few weeks ago and it appeared again on the final test. i never knew a purpose of the government was to learn the secrets of onion farming...

yes! this week was FINALS week and i can't believe school is officially done for the semester! next week, the students are practicing for and then performing in a Christmas concert, so no teaching for us, just report cards to do.

short update on school #1: yes, it has been busy, but no, i have not been at school until 11 pm everyday! (i decided to take tests home and grade them while watching christmas movies :). between that and grading during "self-study" period (where we are forced to supervise students and make them study for their tests), i finished grading all five tests (three classes of three-page geography tests - they had to memorize all the capitals in europe, write a short essay, and more [and they did really well, although apparently i made some students hate geography with that test :)]- one class of pre-calculus, and one class of american government plus their final essays, by friday! which means no work for this weekend! that's a first...

besides school, i have managed to have a few adventures in the past few weeks:

- christmas shopping in insa-dong (plus seeing christmas lights in seoul and buying an itty bitty tree for my desk at school - see left!)

- korean pop-culture 101: learning pop culture from my students. top of the charts in korea right now, boy band "2 pm" - actually, this name sparked a discussion in one of my classes about silly bands names, so i taught them some obscure american bands and then made it an extra credit question on my final :) - a song called "heartbeat". it's absolutely ridiculous (and in my opinion, absolutely hilarious), but the students LOVE it. here it is: "k-pop" at its finest...




now that my classes know that i know about this, every time some of them see me, they dance the little "heartbeat" move...*thump thump thump*. lolz. did you catch the guy in the video with the ponytail?!? moving on...

- we saw a cat die during lunch break one day. we were outside throwing a disc when this cat apparently got hit by a car. now, those who know me know i don't even like cats, but it was the most bizarre, sad thing, seeing the cat die right there. he tried to stand up and ended up spinning in a circle on the ground, leaving a circle of blood on the pavement. then he stopped moving. then one of the street-cleaner guys came around with a broom and dustpan and swept him up.

-SNOW! last saturday and on tuesday, it snowed for about ten minutes each time. on thursday, it started snowing during fourth period, and since they were only supposed to be studying for my final, i took whoever wanted to go outside and we stood in the snow until it got too cold, which was about the time when one of my students said, "if i stay outside long enough, i will become snowman"

 - last friday night: youngsan (basically a huge mall with restaurants, a bookstore, everything) for thai food with kristin. we were waiting in line when we heard "umbrella" (yeah, rihanna) playing. that was a moment. five minutes later, i spotted a sign announcing the "2th anniversary" of a donut shop.

- today, i stumbled into a fantastic foreign foods store where i found spaghetti, whole wheat flour, and microwave popcorn.

- and now, since you've been such a devoted blog reader, an early gift for you: more funny exam answers. i kicked off finals week by perusing the interwebs for hilarious test answers. some of the best were found on this website; i especially love number 21.

classic.

my students are funny without even trying...

American Government: His entire answer to "Describe what happened at the Boston Massacre": "snow ball" (also wrote the "onion" answer). the same student wrote at the end of the test "please give me D - i hate F". i regret to inform you he earned an F.

Geography (9th grade students) - Some excerpts from essays about countries in Europe (any grammar/spelling mistakes are their own):

"I wouldn't like to visit this country. I don' t know about Poland. Then I afraid this country. But I want to live in this country. Because I want be a farmer. Poland have many farmers"

About why he wants to go to France: "Epel tower and snail food. Every body said snail food is good! So I need eat snail food"

"I want live in Ireland, but little bit problem. The problem is bye my parent. So, 1 year of Ireland and 1 year of Korea. Let go Ireland with me ms. Kari <3"

"what is I know about Hungary...I know only one. teacher! your blood is Hungarian...I want see in Budapest, but I don't want live in Hungary because I want live in Luxembourg [because it has the highest GDP in the world]"

"I don't want visit Romania and I don't want live there Because I don't like vampires. I'm very scare about vampires. If I live there vampires will come my home and Bite me so I will never visit to Romania"

"I chose Hungary because of the Great Hungarian Plain. I'm sure the Hungarians are proud of the Great Plain that is in their country...I would like to go to this country to see how Great the 'Great Hungarian Plain' is"

ahh, the joy seeing the fruits of my labor :)

although there have been some rough patches the last few weeks, i continue to be blessed by my students and coworkers. i'm looking forward to christmas, although i have no idea what or if we will be doing something, and also to china! i'm visiting for new years with ANNA!! and we're going to play ultimate in beijing :)

thanks so, so much for your kind words and your prayers. i am one quarter of the way through my contract as of this week! the time is flying by. please pray for spiritual fruit in the students' lives.

living the adventure. 

i'm so thanks to God...

as i approached "american thanksgiving" this week, i anticipated sadness and homesickness coming into the holiday season without my family. today, however, has been nothing less than an incredibly blessed day surrounded by wonderful people and in the presence of a mighty and giving God.

i just returned from an amazing and actually american thanksgiving meal at the home of another "permanent" foreign teacher (who has lived in korea for awhile and has the nicest apartment of anyone i've seen here). first instance of actual american food and the works for thanksgiving - turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, veggies, salad, rolls, gravy, cranberries, pumpkin pie, sparkling apple cider!...i wasn't expecting it at all, and in the company of about fifteen of my wonderful co-workers, it was a great way to spend the holiday.

[it was, however, missing lefse. there's no way it can be thanksgiving if there is no lefse :) ]

i haven't posted for awhile, so there is small gap in my existence here, but that's okay. today's post is all about giving thanks to the God that has brought me here. i definitely miss all of you at home (and abroad!) that i haven't seen in at least two months, sixteen days, and however many hours, and that makes it difficult at times. but God is good (can i get an amen?!?) and He has greater things in mind. hence, in honor of Konglish, the mix of korean and english that most students and even korean adults speak, here is a little list of what has been bouncing around in my head and prayers today as i thought of what "i am so thanks to God" for:

- His continual provision, in every little thing
- the fullness of joy in Christ
- giving me strength and growing me in wisdom everyday
- my family back home and their love and support and prayers (i wish i could celebrate with you!)
- my friends back home (and scattered about the world) and their faithfulness (have an amazing holiday with your family or your "family" wherever you are!!)
- my students and their beautiful smiling faces everyday when i walk into the classroom
- the other teachers and their servants' hearts
- the opportunity to learn from my brothers and sisters in Korea
- Rick Steves, for taking my geography students to Europe via YouTube :)
- grass. lovely, lovely grass (oh how i miss thee)
- clean air
- laughing everyday when a korean will inevitably say to me, "aren't you cold?"
- playing frisbee (really just tossing a disc) after school or during lunch break with students
- quail eggs, eggplant, and sweet potatoes
- christmas lights and christmas music
- getting lost in translation
- beauty in His creation
- stomach-aching laughter when Thomas told me i have a "whoa" bicep muscle (i don't remember what i was talking about, but i somehow flexed said "muscle" in making a gesture when teaching today)
- hugs and high-fives from students
- the opportunity to bless and serve others
- you, because you took the time to read all of this! i'm impressed :)

happy thanksgiving!!!
may the lord bless you and keep you, His face shine upon you, and give you peace forever. amen.