It's Party Time! April Birthdays and Wrap-up

Here we are, already at the end of April. Some parts of this adventure have seemed endless, while some of them have just flown by. For whatever reason I seem to be mentally stuck in March, though I blame the weather for that!

This month, in addition to multiple field trips, was also the April birthday party. Lucky for me, I was included in the festivities because like Sarah and Aron, I too turned a year older. Our Korean co-worker brought me a chocolate cake from Paris Baguette on my actual birthday, then our director took us out to dinner at an (extremely) local Italian restaurant. Then, near the end of the month we celebrated the birthdays of the month, and I had a seat of honor as well. I had a seat of honor and a cake at the party, and the kids/parents were even kind enough to get me gifts.

My special spot for the birthday festivities! The cake itself was delicious, but I'm a fan of the dark chocolate stars on top too. These bakeries know how to make good cakes.

These are all the things my families got me for my birthday, I feel so loved! The little yellow and orange larva near the top middle is my favorite, from Chloe. Mostly because it was a little bag with a card, the larva plush, and a small wrapped tube of lipstick and I'm pretty sure Chloe picked out the larva herself. :)

So what else happened this month? I mentioned field trips and we did go to a strawberry farm, Beartree Park, and Chungcheongbuk-do Forest Science Museum (to be seen in a later post). We got to go to the Cheongju Art Festival and see the blooming cherry blossoms downtown, and lots of little side trips. We also went on a Saturday trip to Seoul (4/27) this past weekend too. All in all, I'd say it's been a pretty good month.

That said, we just finished up our day earlier today with an open class. Our director moved around our rooms, and all the rooms really, the night beforehand so things were kind of off. An offering of rice cakes dusted with some sort of powdery substance (like before our Everland field trip) was placed in each of the rooms today too, and we ate them later for snack. For open class parents and prospective parents are invited to come watch class in action. I had three parents and one grandparent in my class and Zach had 6 or 7 parents in his room today. Fortunately, things went well for the hour, then it was back to normal business. Open classes can be kind of nerve wracking just because of parents sitting around in your classroom with various shades of bored on their faces. At least we were told that we have tomorrow, May 1st, off work. It's apparently Labor Day here so that means our school isn't open. I am okay with that! Sadly, Zach still has to go in and work at his other school in the afternoon, but he's making pretty good money from it.

We've also been busy this month due to preparing the kids for some sort of English speaking competition in Seoul at the end of May. That means me tweaking the things she printed out by retyping them and saving them and changing the language to make it easier. The younger kids are supposed to be presenting for a minute and a half while the older ones are supposed to be doing 2 minute speeches. Today I did additional speeches for two more kids wherein I found brief write ups online and tweaked them to meet my needs. Ellena is now doing a presentation on hanboks and Michael is doing one on housing/living in Korea historically to now. Go me. Now, she initially said this would be a Sunday trip to Soeul for this thing, but then she changed the date (we think?) and maybe it's just an in house thing? We just aren't really sure, like many things.

In other news, my class and I made paper snails this week. Aren't we cute?

Watch out! They're coming for you! Hopefully I update with a new post before these snails make it to you.

Oh hello, we've been hibernating!

You never know what you're going to get from the Dream Science kits. I got a magnet with hair!

Hello there! It's been a while, hasn't it? Zach and I are still alive over here in South Korea, but it's been a rather quiet month. The cold temperatures have kept us cooped up inside a lot more than we were in the fall, so we haven't really had a lot to report. Fortunately for us, we're slowly finishing up with the coldest (on average) month of the year and hopefully February will provide us with above freezing temperatures so we can actually enjoy being outside again. We're looking forward to a high temperature here of 54F later in the week, I cannot wait! Now having said that, the following week is supposed to have highs of 0C, brrrr. At least I can be optimistic about the fact that the days are getting longer?

We're starting to go into the major transition time here in South Korea where teachers begin to come and go also. February is a BIG time for teachers as hagwons and public schools go into a hiring frenzy for the school year starting up in March. The local Facebook group for Cheongju is full of people that are selling things because they're moving home or moving to Seoul, or some other area, as well as people looking for new contracts and work through people who already live here in Cheongju. With that in mind, it's also a good time of year to pick up things people are selling second hand at pretty good prices. It's exciting to think that new people will soon be coming to teach and start their own adventures, but sad too as you realize that South Korea is really a country of transition (for foreigners in particular) and the people that enter your life will likely leave a year later, maybe a handful of years in some cases, but a majority of people realize that it's "time".

In other news, I have been tutoring a 19 year old female soon-to-be college student (legally, of course since my boss set it up) for a week and will probably continue to do so for another week, possibly more. It's been very interesting and not only have I learned that my drawing skills are bad, but she's told me a lot of interesting things about life as a high school student/college student here. We've talked about high school rules, food (she likes to bake), her sister who goes to college in Baltimore, MD, family, and a variety of other topics. It was initially kind of stressful since it was tossed on me, but she talks and I help her with words and phrases, but she's quite good. I guess that's to be expected since she's been learning English for 12 years (wow!).

In other more boring news, we got a new shower head from Lotte Mart to replace the cheap one we got at Daiso to replace the original one that was falling apart. The bathroom light, which had been burnt out for about two weeks, was finally replaced on Friday with a light that I had found downstairs with a stash of others. We did some cleaning and laundry and had McDonald's for lunch yesterday. Life overseas isn't always exciting, but that's reassuring in some ways. I get a bit anxious at times and the regular routine and everyday things make me feel grounded and like I'm still a part of the real world, despite being so far from home.

Because it's been so quiet here lately, Zach and I did some searching and found a website where we can take online courses through specific colleges called Coursera. We decided it would be in our best interest to keep educating ourselves for personal reasons, professional reasons when we get back home, and to help us through the end of the bitter South Korean winter. Starting January 28th I will be taking a course through the University of Edinburgh called E-Learning and Digital Cultures and Zach is taking a course through the University of Toronto titled The Social Context of Mental Health and Illness. We're hoping it will be an interesting learning experience. If all goes well I'm hoping to take another course starting in March through Wesleyan University called Passion Driven Statistics. I may not be great at math, but statistics are interesting and I want to keep what skills I do have, especially considering I want to go to grad school.

Julia and Sarah with their science projects for the week. Magnets and attraction, as much as I was able to explain it to them anyway. I'm learning how to structure the science lessons to make my life easier.

We went downtown to Shinae recently and found this hoodie. You can find anything under the sun around here really, and this was a funny find for me, being from Indiana and all. Go Pacers?!

Origami paper has recently been a big thing and they will try to make anything and everything. The boys especially enjoy it.

Because I have a different idea, and other supplies, I made a snake! This is Seymour, isn't he precious?

We also recently had the birthday party for the January birthdays. It was a bit early as the boss lady and two kids went to Australia for a week and a half, but still fun. January was James, Kate, Galileo, Carley, and Chris. There were strawberries and blueberries, something we haven't had in months. It's the little things.