plane tickets and schools closing and boys and things...

sooooo much new:

1. tango pango is closing in 3 weeks. july 15 is my last day. a month and a half earlier than my contract stated. and i was just told. the school is just not making money i guess, so on july 15th it will close its doors. surprisingly, i didn't freak out. since i get to stay in my apartment until august, the plan is, i'm going to try to find a summer camp to do for a month or some part time teaching for a month until august 17 when i'm...

2. GOING TO THAILAND!!!! AND LAOS!!!! AND MAYBE CAMBODIA!!!! cousin jen is meeting me in bangkok and we're making our way around southeast asia for nearly a month. the itinerary is in the works. then i fly back to korea and immedietely i....

3. fly home! i've just reserved my ticket. crrrrazy that this year is almost over. the plan for next year is that i have no plan yet. :) but i might find myself in england at some point to see....

4. a boy! it's the guy i met when i went to beijing last february who was staying at my hostel and after spending a dreamy 16 hours together we kept in touch as he traveled around the world and a week ago, he moved to korea for the summer so that we could be together. :) so yes, i guess you could say i have a...errr...uh....boyfriend. from england! he he. very hollywood movie-esque isn't it??? :) anyway, he's wonderful, we're happy, and i'm grateful. wanna see pictures of him? i would if i were you. click here

and for more fun pictures, check out me with my kids in the little field trip we took to the playground...click here

to the east sea and back again.

ok. i feel like i've been a big blogging slacker these days. sorry to all my readers. i will try to do better.

so. this past weekend we had friday off so me and 6 of my friends traveled to the east sea of korea, a province called kangwondo. we stayed in our friends' condo right in the most famous mountains of korea, saraksan. it was soooo beautiful. we did some serious barefooted rock climbing through
waterfalls in the mountains, we swam in the

way-too-cold-to-be-swimming-in ocean, we ate fresh sea food straight i mean STRAIGHT out of the ocean, as in i watched them kill the fish and about 10 seconds later i was eating it's insides...(who knew sushi could be so amazing?), and i got to spend 3 whole days with people that i really love. the downside was that i didn't really sleep for any of those 3 days cuz 4 out of the 7 people staying in our small little room snored (PET PEEVE!!!), but i managed to thoroughly enjoy the holiday anyway. click here for all the pictures, which will hopefully be able to tell and show you what we got up to.

in other news, summer has arrived in korea. last week there were signs of rainy season beginning early, as it rained every. single. day. causing seriously depression and sadness in the life of carolyn given the fact that i bike to and from school 3 times a day. i think i may need to invest in a big colorfully polka dotted rain coat and perhaps some of those cool rubber rain boots. but this week it's only supposed to rain a couple days, so perhaps we've still got a few weeks before rainy season is in full blast.

the little devils i call my students are, well, still little devils which means i still love my job. :) (what fun is it if they're always good?) today i came to school and heard hysterical bawling all the way from the bottom of the stairs. (what a great sound to hear first thing on monday morning...) anyway, i opened the doors of the school to find little danielle sobbing i mean SOBBING like world had just run out of playgrounds. after 15 minutes of wondering what she was blubbering in korean to our korean teachers, worrying that perhaps something really dreadful had happened to someone in her family, or maybe she had had a big 5-year-old falling out with one of her best friends, i found out that the reason behind the record-breaking tears was that she didn't like the pants she was wearing today. right. i didn't really like the pants i was wearing today either. so i completely understood.

happy birthday mina

last night was mina's birthday party in hongdae. lots of fun as shown below....










me and the birthday girl!







at bricxx...








chohee on the left (the poor soul who tries to color my hair) and mina and i...