everyone needs a box to call their own.

FINALLY! my little home! it's not much, but it's mine, and i love it. :) enjoy.

on the left: the view from my door.
on the right: my bed! and my monkey! :)









on the left: from the back of my apt looking at the door.
on the right: my little kitchen table amd tv. :)






left: the main room. (wait, i only have one room.)
right: my bathroom! i have a real shower! which is more than a lot of teachers here can say.


for the complete album i posted to facebook, with a few pictures from chicago, a few from here, and more of my humble abode, click here.

this is why i love korean kids...

who said koreans don't have moves? (i've never actually heard anyone say that...) you MUST watch this little korean boy body-popping like you've never seen. that's the sort of thing that gets you all the girls in school...

in other news, the new foreign teacher came to our school. out with the old (and strange--apparently he hasn't been paying his bills the entire 6 months he was here...) and in with the new (and canadian--some of my best friends are canadian)! anyway, i'm glad for the change. we are still down one korean teacher, but hopefully we will hire a new one soon--VERY soon because we seem to be getting a new student every day lately! we have an open house this saturday, so i'm guessing the numbers will keep going up (new semester starts in a month, so everyone is looking for a place for their kid...) it makes classes a little louder, preparation a little more time-consuming, and shouting a little more necessary, but it's job security!

up north...

north korea in photos

about 30 minutes north of where i live, i can climb a hill, look out, and see north korea just over the river. it's so close, and yet it's a completely different world. i felt really touched and emotional as i looked at these pictures--all the soldiers and people look just the same as the people i see everyday here, and yet their lives are so incredibly different. the little kids i teach at my school look exactly like the kids playing in those pictures, but the opportunities given to the kids in the pictures are non-existant. i can't believe that the other half of this country i live in is so close, and the people are exactly the same, and yet the two countries could not be heading in different directions. it's like the pictures are from 100 years ago. i can't believe that seemingly un-real world is literally right above me.

a very busy bee.

bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. that me. buzzing around. being a busy bee. becuase my life is very busy!

lately, i feel like i'm running around like a head with my chicken cut off! school is busy and i feel like i sit down maybe 2 seconds of my day. this week has been a dooooozy because the head korean kindergarten teacher has been out sick all week, leaving the place to basically crumble to pieces without her! also, the new korean teacher who is in charge of the elementary stuff is quitting, and next week the current foreign teacher is being replaced by someone new, and guess who gets to train this just-graduate who's never taught before let alone never taught in the chaotic classroom of korea? the busy bee!!!! (meeeeee!!!!!!!!!!) on top of my normal job, i'm doing atleast 4 hours of privates a week, as well as working the next two weekends, as well as spending every bit of spare time working on the adventure teaching facebook page and blog, as well as jamming every weekend with a hopping social life! this poor bee is losing her buzz!

i'm trying to stay calm.

mix-up.

i started writing this post about something that happened in my elementary class this afternoon, and it occurred to me that it's possible i've never actually laid out what my day looks like so here it is:

from 9:30-2:30, kookje english village (the name of my school...also have i mentioned this before?) is a kindergarten for 23 little angels (devils) ages 5-7 korean age, which means 4-6 american age. (when kids are born here, they are automatically age 1, and when january one rolls around, everybody in the whole country turns another year older. so, for example, if a kid is born on december 31, already 1 year old, he will then turn 2 the next day. a two day old is considered a 2 year old. so unfair! koreans are always trying to get a jump start on us westerners...actually though it's so fitting with the whole 'nobody's allowed to be an individual here!' thing that EVERYBODY turns another year older at the same time. pfffff!) so anyway, the classes are 30 minutes each and we change rooms for each class while the kids stay put. a lot of moving around for us! but it makes the day go super fast.

then from 3:00-5:15 we teach elementary students who come for classes after their regular school. these are also 30 min classes and a nice change after the kindergarten since they can wipe their own noses, etc.

OK. so here's the story. today in the highest elementary class , we were working on our weekly essay, this week the topic being, 'how often do you see your gradnparents." as all 4 students were scribbling furiously so as to lessen the amount of homework they would have that night, one of my students named mark shot his head up and asked me how to spell the word 'crap.' here's how the conversation went:

mark: carolyn teacher, how do you spell crap?
me: crap? how do you spell crap?
mark: yes teacher, crap.
me: why do you need to know how to spell crap mark? what are you writing about?
mark: how do you spell crap carolyn teacher?
me: um, ok. c-r-a-p.

2 minutes later....

mark: carolyn teacher, how do you spell bitch?
me: excuse me? what?
mark: bitch.
me: bitch? mark, what...what...what are you writing? this is an essay about your grandparents...
mark: bitch, teacher, please. how do you spell?
me: mark, crap and bitch? what?
mark: (nod.)

pause....

anna (student): sigh. crab and beach, carolyn teacher.

me: oh, CRAB and BEACH!!!!!!

apparently, he was writing about the time he went on vacation with his grandma. whew.




me: why do you need to know how to spell crap?

king of pop.

ever since i heard the news of michael jackson's death last week, i've just had such a terribly sad feeling inside. last night we watched a documentary on his life and i've been tuning into the news articles of how his life got so twisted by the news, media, interviewers, false charges...it seems so tragic.

i've also been watching youtube videos of his performances and listening to his music and i think it's safe to say he was and will always be the king of pop. in my opinion. how did he do it? i'm buying as many of his albums today as i can afford. (and by that, i mean one. the essentials of course...)

since i'm riding the pop train, i've also been a sort of fan of lady gaga ever since i saw her music video of paparazzi and last night i also watched her do an accoustic version of the song live on a radio show. i cannot stop singing that song! i was singing it all day in class as my little korean kids just stared at me like..."are we learning that in music class this week?" i just want her to pull her hair back, wipe off her make-up so i can actually see what she looks like. what's underneath lady gaga anyway? i can't tell if i'm totally anoyed or totally a fan.

am i having a blog affair?

Who loves Nepalese food? ME ME ME!!!! Who loves the best Nepalese food in the whole wide world? ME ME ME!!! That’s why I headed to Everest Resturaunt in Dongdaemun on Friday night. I have to say that for the 9 months I was out of Korea, Everest was on my top list of Things I miss about Korea. Nothing has changed: the vegetable samosas are still to die for, the Malai Kafta is still heavenly bliss, and the garlic naan is still dangerously close to making me wonder if it’s possible to become a garlic naan-aholic and if Korea offers group rehabilitation classes for that somewhere. (”Hi, my name is Carolyn and I’m a garlic naan-aholic.” “Hi Carolyn…”)After stuffing ourselves with deliciousness, we ventured into the Dongdaemun shopping district. At 10:30pm, the Dongdaemun market was just coming to life, with endless streets of vendors, malls, more vendors, more malls…talk about overwhelming. We were hot, sweaty, and tired of the wierd smells, but we found some fake Calvin Klein underwear that could pass for the real thing (at least from a distance and how many people do you have looking at the details of your underwear anyway? hopefully not many…), so our work there was done.

i feel like i'm double dipping because i took part of this blog from an entry i just wrote on the adventure teaching blog, but it seems ridiculous to write 2 entirely different blogs when, in this instant, i sort of wanted to write the same things. trying to be witty and clever twice on the same topic is just too much work. but now i sorta feel like i'm cheating on my personal blog. like i'm two-timing. what if my 2 blogs find out about each other? scary thought...