Work..Snow..& St. Patty's Day!

The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page!





Peach! Shes in my morning Kinder class. Isnt her name absolutely fitting? She's SO smart :) I love when she say's 'Katie Teacher' because she kind of has a lisp that melts your heart!







My AM class that I have from 9:20am-1:40pm LONG day and I still have 3 more classes after this!!! There names are, Faith, Mickael, Peach, Jinny, Vicky and Jennifer! I love them...the 1st day they had no idea what I was saying and I've been with them since the beg of March and it's only been 3 weeks and they have learned SO SO SO much! Faiths mom told me that he has all the songs we do in class memorized and that because of me he speaks a lot of English at home! It makes me feel like I'm really making a difference! Arent they cute?! ;)





Me with MY little kinder kiddies! Mickael, Vicky and Peach :)




Playing in the play room...my FAVORITE 20 minutes..and theirs too!!! :)




Our snowy walk to school! It takes us about 25minutes to walk there both ways...up hill! haha.






SNOW! In March! I love this picture though, I took it right outside our apartment when we got home St. Patty's day night!





<3 Loved this!




In Seoul for the St. Patty's celebration! We loved her costume! It was so windy out though!




St. Patty's day crew! :)




Korean band playing Irish songs for St. Patty's Day! They were actually really good!






March 19th 2010:

It’s currently 5:17pm on FRIDAY and all I can say is TGIF!! My kiddies just left and I have an hour until I’m off work so I thought I’d catch up on some blogging while ‘youtubing’ random music. 2 weeks ago Bri, Tia and I joined a gym at one of our Korean friends apartment for 60,000 won for 3 months…pretty good deal considering I was paying about $60 a month at my gym back home in Sammamish! This gym is nothing special but it does the job. I think I got spoiled with the gym at WSU…nothing compares! (Except maybe that new gym in Bellevue, but I havent been in there). At this gym in Korea theres this machine where you stand with a belt around you and when you turn it on it vibrates your muscles so intensly! I call it, ‘The Wiggle Machine’, it’s supposed to wiggle and jiggle your fat off haha, I’ll let you know how it works! I’ve been running and doing the ‘wiggle’ machine plus some arms…I really want to get my arms into rockin shape, and according to ‘Shape’ magazine your arms are the easiest musicle to mold…we’ll see! I have about 3 months before we take our summer vacation to Guam, sooo I need to get serious about my swimsuit bod haha!

We get two 1 week vacations this year. One in the summer and one in the winter. We’re thinking Guam this summer, a little island in-between Asia and Australia. Tia has a friend who works at a resort there and loves (well who wouldn’t?? It’s paradise times a million!!) and hopefully he can help set us up with a good deal! Then we’re thinking about going to Thailand this winter, and I absolutely can’t wait to ride on the elephants!!!! My little Allie is there right now until May and her pictures are so awesome. I have heard such good things about Thailand and I cant wait to experience it for myself!!!

These past few weeks have been really stressful with our new contracts. Switching from ‘Brown’ school to ‘LCI’ has been quite dramatic and draining. Things that were in our original contract have been taken out and new clauses have been added. It’s been frustrating because our director hasn’t been great with the communication so we have all been a little annoyed on top of being extremely tired which isnt the best combo! But I’m meeting with Jade today to go over a revised contract and hopefully it goes smooth, I’m crossing my fingers!!



March 22, 2010:

My meeting went smooth with Jade and I’m going to sign the revised contract today after work.

It’s snowing right now and I can’t believe it. IT’S MARCH! I’m jealous because I hear the weather has been so nice back at home plus it looks like a lot of people went somewhere hot for spring break…luckkkyyy!! I can’t wait for the weather to clear up..it feels like the longest winter ever! It is pretty though. Last Wednesday was St. Patty’s day and I tried to explain it to my kids but they had no idea what I was talking about and I showed them pictures of leprechauns and 4 leaf clovers and they thought I was nuts! After work on Wednesday we all went out to an Irish pub for some dinner and drinks. We met up with our friends who also live in Dongtan and it was a really good time. I found the pub to be highly entertaining because the décor was Halloween items…I was confused! After dinner we headed home in a snow blizzard! Friday morning during my kindergarten class one of my students asked to go to the bathroom and I told him yes, then he came back moment later with a wet lap. He peed his pants!!! He just laughed and laughed like it was no big deal..I couldn’t believe it haha! Also, Friday Tia, Bri and I walked to a hair salon after work so Bri could get her bangs trimmed and I asked them how much it would be for me to touch up my highlights and they said 40,000 won which seems incredibly cheap and worries me that they didn’t understand what I was trying to say. I’ll have to take one of my Korean teachers with me when I get it done to make sure they know what I want…I don’t want to end up with bright pink hair haha. Then we went and looked in some shops for green attire for Saturdays St. Patty’s celebration. After we shopped around a bit we headed back to our apartments to have a chill night in so we would be energized for Saturday. I ended up just watching season 2 of the OC which I’m currently obsessed with…I know I know, Im like 7 yrs late from when that show was popular haha. On Saturday we woke up and headed to Seoul around 12:30pm to watch a St. Patty’s parade and meet up with Katelan and our other Dongtan friends. We unfortunately are still getting use to the timing of the buses and we missed the parade by like 30min!! But a bunch of people met up at an Irish pub and we all celebrated St. Patty’s! I met some really cool Irish men who gave me half of their Subway sandwich because I told them how much I missed it!! I loved their accents and it was interesting how there were so many people from Ireland in South Korea! The Irish group I met said they had been here for 2 years and loved it! It seems like a lot of people end up staying here longer than a year. After the 1st pub we headed to another pub where there was a Korean music group that sang Irish songs, it was a blast! We got unlimited European style food and drinks for 50,000 won plus the live entertainment. We all had a really great time!

I hope this week flies by and the weather gets nicer! This weekend we are celebrating Ta-leah and Chase’s birthdays which should be fun! My kids are getting smarter by the day and I can’t wait to see how much they have learned and improved by the time my year is done. One of my student’s moms told me that because of me her son is speaking a lot of English now at home and he has the songs memorized that we sing everyday! I love it and it makes me feel like I’m really useful over here and making a small difference for these kids!

Until next time!

<3 Katie Teacher!!!