It's beginning to look a lot like......!

I should be doing homework. But I don't want to. I still have two terms left of school after this one, and am already soooo ready to be done. And I only have one final this term, and had no midterms, but still can't motivate myself to do anything!

Anyway, last night I was craving a little Christmas spirit. So Ben and I watched Elf (I don't know why I love that movie so much, but I've watched it a million times and could watch it a million more!) and drank some hot chocolate with marshmallows (left over from Halloween rice crispy treat ingredients!). And now I'm so ready for Christmas!



I don't know why I love Christmas so much, but it is just my absolute favorite time of the year. Even though the weather sucks (come on, why can't it just snow if its going to be cold and wet?!), and I have no money to buy good gifts for everyone, I just love it. The decorations, the food, the shopping, the food, the family get-togethers, the planning, the fun events, the food, etc. I've always been single during the holidays (or...always...) and so I'm even more excited to have a special someone to share the holidays with this year! Makes it even better! Although coordinating family holiday events is not exactly easy...

To kick off the Christmas shopping season this year I may even do some Black Friday shopping. Why, you ask? I have no idea. I hate Black Friday shopping. But I don't have to work Friday (at least I don't think I do....schedules are subject to change at any given time at my work) and figure maybe I can snag some good deals. Although I may end up murdering people because I don't really like malls at normal times of the year, much less when they are FULL of PSYCHOS. But, I'm all about the budget shopping, and what better time to do it? Plus, I need some socks.



P.S. Google image search "Elf." There are some interesting things out there. Especially this.

Recent events

I've been back from Korea for about two and a half months now. And what a busy two months it has been! It seems more like about six months than two. Here are some things that have happened in the past two months:

-My friend Kayla had a beautiful baby girl, but she had to have open heart surgery at Doernbecher Children's Hospital at two weeks old. Fortunately I live right next door to the hospital so was able to visit quite a bit! Ila Rae is happy and healthy now and recovered very quickly, praise the Lord!
-Ben's friend Jon got married, and he was in the wedding. It was a really beautiful wedding and was lots of fun!
-I started work again after a week of being back and school again after a month.
-We found out my sissy is having a baby boy in February! So excited for a nephew!
-Ben and I celebrated 7 months of being in loooove! :)
-I turned 27. In the words of a 4-year-old girl at work the other day: "SOOOOOO old." Thanks.
-I spent almost a week in Sunriver with Ben for my birthday, so nice! We mostly ate a lot of good food, watched a lot of Dexter, and played a lot of Star Fluxx (our favorite of the Fluxx games so far...we still have a few more versions to try though!).

A lot has happened since I last blogged! But mostly I want to talk about something that's really annoying me. I am not a political person. I hate politics in fact. I avoid talking about them and learning about them at all costs. But when they are forced upon you, you can't really help but form an opinion or take a side.

Take the Occupy Portland movement, for example. It started out annoying enough. Honestly, I didn't even know what it was all about at first. I was just annoyed. This is what I found today while researching it a little (I still don't really know what they are trying to accomplish. I don't think most of the protesters know either): Occupy Wall Street is "fighting back against the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations. The movement is inspired by popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, and aims to expose how the richest 1% of people are writing the rules of an unfair global economy that is foreclosing on our future."

Okay. Yes, there are rich people in the world. Yes they are in power. No there aren't as many jobs available right now as there have been in the past. And yes people are losing their homes. Okay, maybe some of those things suck. But really, people? Is camping out in parks and protesting outside of banks going to do anything? First of all, what do you actually want to do? Make the rich people give all the poor people money? Tell people that they don't need to make their mortgage payments and they can keep their homes? Tell everyone that they don't need a job because the rich people should just take care of everyone? Second of all, this is not the way to accomplish anything. Except for piss people off. Well, if that's your intent, you've succeeded.

I met Ben for lunch today at his work. (He works for a BANK, people! The devil himself as far as these protesters are concerned.) I got there to find cops all over in riot gear. Every bank I passed today had security guards stationed outside. After we had lunch, I headed back to campus. I tried to get on the Max, and after pushing the "door open" button repeatedly, some guy finally told me that the Max wasn't running. Everyone had just been kicked off. The protesters were "on the move" and so the Max couldn't run. Okay, whatever. I just started walking. But then I stumbled upon the protesters. They were standing outside of the Wells Fargo tower and Bank of America building. I was already annoyed that I had to walk because of them (I'm not lazy at all!). Then I couldnt even walk down that street because they were EVERYWHERE. I'm sure if anyone saw me, they would think I was sick. I was so disgusted. I kept rolling my eyes and sighing loudly. And actually I think someone maybe did see me. I was walking along, texting Ben about how annoyed I was (actually, my exact words were "I want to murder them all.") and someone kind of grabbed my elbow. I didn't even look, just kept walking. So if that was you, I'm terribly sorry. I wasn't trying to be rude. I was just afraid that if someone else tried to hand my a flyer, or talk to me, or if I had to see another stupid protester, I would become violent. So I chose to just keep my head down and keep walking.

This is what I found on the Occupy Portland website about the events today: "Two specific demands uniting the N17 organizing groups are that banks stop foreclosing on people’s homes and that the city of Portland and Multnomah County immediately cease enforcing foreclosures. These demands embody the larger goal of reclaiming democracy by putting people and the environment before profit and greed." Really? So if someone doesn't make their mortgage payments, they banks and the government should just go ahead and turn a blind eye? I understand that some of these foreclosures are due to people losing jobs because of the bad economy. And home prices sinking. If you can't pay rent, should your landlord just go ahead and keep letting you live there too? If you can't make your payments, you find something you can afford. That's all there is to it. It sucks. Horribly. But you can't get something for nothing in this world. Unless you find one of the 1% to pay for everything with you. Come on Occupiers, when are you going to make that happen for us???

The long road home

So after saying our goodbyes at camp, and having a lunch of fried eggs and french fries, and pissing the bus driver off because we took foreeeever to get loaded on the bus, we headed to our next destination. My understanding was that we were headed to Woman Plaza, where we had first started this adventure a month ago. It was kind of our home base away from camp. So I got on the bus ready to wind up in a familiar place. Only, two hours or so later, we were somewhere else entirely. Welcome to Korea. This kind of thing happened all the time.

So, turns out we were to stay that night at Daebul University. We chose roommates and found rooms. Trista and I walked into our room (well, Trista limped in because she broke her foot about a week before this) and it seemed pretty similar to our camp dorm rooms. Except I had left my sheets at camp because I thought we were going to stay somewhere decent. Bad move. But that's not the worst of it. We timidly peeked in the bathroom to find, what else? A toilet full of poop. I mean full of it. I quickly backed away and tried not to throw up. And gallant Jonathan tried to flush it. Which just resulted in the water filling up the toilet bowl and almost overflowing. Which resulted in Trista and I grabbing our bags to search for another room. We found our rooms, begged for blankets and pillows to lay on the nasty mattresses (the blankets not being much better as they were covered in hair and smelled like cat pee. But better than nothing. I think), and then got dressed for our farewell dinner with the governor. After another lovely speech from the governor and an award for Tank for being the best teacher in the program (I'm sure this had nothing to do with the fact that he was male and the oldest teacher in the program...thanks Korean cheauvinism!), we got dinner. A buffet. But not the kind of Korea buffets we had grown accustomed to. This one was amazing. We left so very full and happy! And then were given gifts and were even more happy! And then had to sleep on the nasty mattresses. With one tiny blanket used sleeping-bag style to avoid actually touching the mattress. Which meant being very cold. And not sleeping much. And then it was morning!

The next day we were set to go to a "traditional folk village." Again, we had no idea what to expect. We got there and things seemed better than expected. There was electricity, our room had a bathroom (granted, 17 of us were sharing said room, but still. A bathroom!) and there was a cute puppy. We set up our "beds" (blankets on the ground. Really? Another night without a real bed?!) and then went to mingle. Although my "group" of campers isn't really good at mingling. We kind of stuck to each other. But I did go on a walk with Alice, who I had hung out with quite a bit during our first week of orientation here. Little did we know what that walk would turn into. We were walking in the dark, minding our own business, when this young Korean guy comes up to us asking if we know where such-and-such a thing is. We looked at each other and said, "Uhhh, sorry." Then he said, "Do you know where Shayna is?" This we did know. So he asked us to tell her that Jackie was there for her. Uh...guess our walk was over? So we headed back to the rooms and began a quest for Shayna. We only knew who she was because Jackie had called earlier looking for her. And she said "Oh my gosh, what if he is HERE?" Well, we went to find Shayna. Which took forever. There were a lot of rooms (of course mine was the only one with a billion girls in it.) and no one knew where she was. We finally just started calling her name to the closed doors and found her. And told her to follow us. And we led her to Jackie. And left her there. And were worried that she might be murdered, but thought we could probably hear the screams if he tried anything since they weren't too far away. Anyway, he didn't propose marriage like she was worried he was going to, but hung out at our camp for the night.

I wish I could say that night was over at that point. I hung out with some people for a bit before deciding to go to bed. I'm not sure what made me think that I would be able to sleep in a camp with 100 teachers drinking themselves crazy, or in a room with 17ish other girls being loud and drunk and annoying. I think I fell asleep about two hours before I was supposed to wake up. And then we headed to the bus to make our way to another city. I didn't have great hopes for the hotel. But turns out it was pretty nice!

In the days since camp ended, we have seen museums, burial mounds, bus seats, lots of bus seats (especially because no one else sits on our bus....apparently they don't like the Damyang camp teachers...), roads, rest stops, restaurants, we said goodbye multiple times to our Korean co-teachers as they met us in Gwangju and then a couple more met us in the next city, and now we are in Seoul. Where we have had free time for the firs time in five weeks. Kind of crazy! The hotel here is amazing and kind of makes me just want to sleep and take bubble baths all day instead of exploring the city. But I only have two days here so am making the most of it!

Then home sweet home! See you all soon!

Also, my lovely friend Kayla had her baby girl today at about 4:30pm: 8 lb 10 oz. Congratulations Kayla and Cody and welcome to the world, Ila Rae!

FINISHY!

The camp is done! I have never been so exhausted in my life. But it was pretty amazing at the same time! The last few days of camp were crazy. I don't know how I made it, every day I was more and more tired. Time went by quicker this camp since I was always so busy teaching. I taught six classes a day, plus had my homeroom class for about 3 hours a day. Then there were all the activities on top of that.

All the other teachers said they liked the middle school camp better and the middle school kids better. I didn't really get to know the kids at that camp that well, so I don't have as much to compare with. They said the elementary school kids were too hard to control. I didn't think that at all, but it could be that I'm used to dealing with American kids of that age, who are insane. Or it could be that the kids were too busy cooking in my class to cause trouble. Either way, I absolutely adored the elementary school kids. My homeroom class was the best, a fact which all the other teachers agree to. They were fun and smart and goofy but still paid attention and did what they were told. The girls in my class put together a little message poster for me on the last day which was so sweet I almost cried. Almost. We'll get back to that. And my precious little Roger kept pretending to march and would say "this is how I arriving in Oregon." He is going to walk and swim to visit me. I'll expect to see him in about ten years, tired from swimming across the Pacific Ocean.

After teaching 144 kids how to make first ham sandwiches (running out of bread the first day, so we had to switch to banana pancakes early for some classes), then banana pancakes, then chocolate cookies, it was time for the classes to be over and other events to begin. I was shocked when asking some classes what their favorite thing to cook was, and they answered ham and cheese sandwiches. What kid in their right mind would choose a sandwich over chocolate cookes?!

The lesson plans were pretty straight forward-introduce vocabulary, do some worksheets and then make the food. But my co-teacher and I tried to make it a little more fun. So we would come up with ways to turn the vocabulary into a game. Like matching pictures to words, or charades, or putting the recipe in the right order, etc. It wasn't usually until the second day of classes (we taught each recipe for two days-6 classes each day until we taught all 12 classes) that we really had things figured out, but all the kids learned what they needed to! We played a game at the end called "Golden Bell" (apparently a game show on TV here) and we all had to submit questions. I was so proud when almost all the kids answered the cooking questions right! Made me feel like they actually understood what I was teaching them!

The last full day of camp was filled with some games: relay races (I stayed out of it this time to avoid getting injured again!), hula hooping, dodge ball, water balloon toss (where I got soaked), etc. It also included "Camp Idol." Each class had to pick a song to sing and individual kids also performed. And hour and a half each day was allotted to Song Practice. So they should have had 7 days to practice their song before performing. Except my kids couldn't agree on a song. First it was Lemon Tree by Fool's Garden (which I had never heard before but they knew it already), then it was Sk8er Boi. Then back to Lemon Tree. Then it was a medly of songs which kids would perform short parts of. Then it was back to "I don't know!!!" So I made them sing Summer Nights from Grease. Never mind that it is about a summer love affair...they didn't understand the words anyway. They decided to switch parts, and the girls would sing the boys parts and vice versa.

After a fun day of playing games (in first the hot gym and then the hot outdoors), the kids were tired. But ready for their performance! There were a lot of fun songs and performances (including some brave kids imitating the Discipline Teacher (did I fail to mention there are four people at camp with that title?), which was hilaaaarious!), and after some slight technical difficulties my kids did their song perfectly. I have a video but it will take ten years to load, so that will just have to wait to be seen!

At the end of Camp Idol, there were some speeches. I was exhausted and one little girl (who has an amazing accent and speaks English nearly perfectly) gave a short little speech which was really cute. I was willing myself not to cry. But a tear or two squeaked out. Then some teachers saw and made a fuss. Then some kids saw....and started chanting "AMY! AMY! AMY!" Which then turned into "AMY! DON'T CRY! AMY! DON'T CRY!" Which did not help matters. And then I got it under control. And then one of the Discipline Teachers, Sun Flower, showed a video of camp. And then the STUDENTS started crying. One of my girls, Anne, who never really participated much although she was always sweet, started sobbing. Literally sobbing. Shoulders heaving and noises and snot and tears and everything. And she would not stop. So I went to hold her hand. (They love hand-holding here. We all (males included) got used to having kids (or fellow teachers) come grab our hand to walk around). And willed myself not to cry. And only a few tears leaked out.

After Camp Idol, the teary-eyed kids went to bed. And the teachers had a goodbye party. Where the principal kept filling everyone's glasses with Soju. He would not give up. Then the next morning, we had a closing ceremony and the kids headed out. After giving out my email to a few kids (I already got one email, sooooo cute!) and signing my name a zillion times on their camp tshirts, it was time to go. AND I DIDN'T EVEN CRY! Until we had to say goodbye to our co-teachers. They were in the trench with us the whole time and were so amazing! I didn't bond as much with all of them as some of the other teachers did, since I wasn't working one-on-one with anyone the first camp and didn't go get wasted with them every night, but it was still sad to know I won't see them again!

I was so glad camp was over. And am so ready to come home, even though I have a few days left here in Korea. And am ready to get back to my normal life. But seeing the kids reactions to camp and how attached they were and what an impact we made on them was so touching. Teaching really is a beautiful thing. Even if it exhausts you and makes you think you are crazy, at the end of the day, someone will learn something or say something or do something that lets you know that what you are doing is important. And that's what its all about!

They asked us all if we would want to come back and teach in a real school for a year. They pay about $30,000 a year and also give you free housing. Pretty dang good deal. No master's degree or teaching certificate required. If I was five years younger, I probably would do it. But at this point there are things more important to me than adventuring around for a year. I never thought I would say that, but its true! I can still make an impact on kids at home just as much.

In the two days since camp has ended, there have been many adventures. More to come on those soon!

T minus one day

Field trip...where there was nothing to do but look at this pond.


Oh my gosh I love this kid. He was hot and didn't have an umbrella
so he picked a leaf to shade himself with!


One of the most adorable boys ever


They love their stickers! They count as part of their "grade" so they
get really excited when they get some.


My co-teacher and our student Kate


The boys: practicing their song


And the girls!


Waiting in line! Probably getting in trouble...



Teaching the kids how to make cookies

Playing a game that Diana came up with


Teaching them how to "crack" eggs and "stir." New vocabulary!


Fighting over the last banana pancake! Rock-paper-scissors style.



Golden Bell. This symbol means "true."

Jason was one of the finalists in Golden Bell.
So proud of him! (this is the "false" symbol)


Roger and Transformer :)

Me and my lovely roommates! Me, Diana (also my co-teacher) and Moony.

Love this kid! (Roger)

Bumblebee thinking hard!

Me and Anne

Bumblebee...he did not want a picture taken!
He looks like a trouble maker, but is one of the
smartest kids in our class and so much fun.

Jason on the right is my student, I don't remember the other's name...

Cute :)

"Survival Games"

Chaos in the gym

Teachers goofing around

Today was the last day of actual teaching! Tomorrow we will have some games and testing and other activities for the kids, then the following day we all pack up and head out. It seems like this camp took forever to pass. But now that its the end, it seems like it flew by! I am so in love with my students and had a lot of fun teaching, although I'm as tired as I have ever been. It might be a little sad to say goodbye to these kids that I've bonded with and been inspired by, but I still am looking forward to coming home :)

Here are the Korean words/phrases I've learned so far during my stay (if you speak Korean, please ignore the phonetic spelling and horrific pronunciation):
Annyong haseyo (hello) (or just 'Annyong' if you're talking to a child)
Kamsahamnida (thank you)
Bali Bali! (Hurry!)
Ne (yes-pronounced like 'nay')
Anyi (no)
Man gi gi ma (don't touch me)
Piyante (pervert)
Hua jang shil (bathroom)
Opa (brother-used by females to refer to any male older than themselves)
Oma (mom-used by my students in reference to me cooking in an apron)
Annyong hikaseyo (goodbye-if you are leaving the other person)
Annyong hikayseyo (goodbye-if you are the one staying)
Hapyang (put your hands together in front of your chest-prayer position at the temple)
Pambay (bow)
Otokay (I have no idea what it means, but hear it all the time)
Assa! (awesome!)
Nakshi! ("Just kidding!" Actually, more like "psych!")
Hull ("wow" or any other equivalent utterance of amazement/shock/surprise/excitement)
Aish (kind of like "oh my gosh")

Amy teacher!

I have a pretty amazing class of 12 year olds here at the Jeollanamdo English Camp in Damyang, South Korea. Here is who I have:

Jason-super smart and adorable
Roger-cutest kid ever. So tiny and fiesty and funny.
Transformer-trouble maker
Bumblebee-partner in crime to the above....
Soap-pretty quiet guy but so cute!
Sarah-sweet and smart and good sense of humor.
Kate-very smart girl!
Anne-suuuuper quiet and shy and scared at first, but now she's having more fun!
Nero-is disabled in some way (has a back brace) and the kids are mean to her :(
Hot Dog-ATTITUDE!
Sophia-tiiiiny little adorable girl
Jane-quiet, but apparently quite a complainer in Korean

My homeroom class enjoying their ham and cheese sandwiches!

My co-teacher, Yunhee (Diana is her English name), is amazing. She speaks English nearly perfectly, is so sweet and works hard. Some co-teachers don't want to do anything so don't really help teach at all. But Yunhee is always coming up with ideas and helping lead the class and steps in whenever she needs to. We work quite well together! And we make some dang good banana pancakes.

So we teach six 40-minute classes per day. There are 12 classes total, and they rotate through our room. We have three lessons, so every two days we teach a new lesson. My class is cooking, so the first lesson was ham and cheese sandwiches. Next up was banana pancakes, and tomorrow the cookies begin. The lessons are technically already planned for us, but we try to make it a little more interactive and interesting. So we came up with some games for the sandwich lesson (a race to put the recipe in the correct order-nine different steps). The banana pancakes take a little longer, so there isn't much time for games. But we did introduce some new vocabulary that the book didn't mention. Things like eggshell, banana peel, pour, crack (asking a class of twelve year olds to repeat the word "crack" over and over just seemed wrong....but they just know it in reference to eggs!). The cookie lesson tomorrow will have to be modified as well I'm sure, but we kind of just do it as we go and figure it out. The first few classes don't get as fun of lessons for that reason, but they still get yummy food!

The kids here are so great. They love our cooking class, which makes me happy! And they just have so much fun. I fell in love with a little girl from another class named Lolly. She sat next to me during the soccer game we watched the other night, and talked nonstop. Most kids avoid speaking in English whenever they can. So when I find a kid who actually wants to practice their English and who isn't afraid to make mistakes, I get so excited! She told her homeroom teacher after the game all about her conversation with me and now makes sure to talk to me whenever she sees me.

There is another girl named U-jin who I'm pretty sure speaks better English than I do. I don't know where she learned it or how she speaks so perfectly, but its quite impressive. She doesn't even have an accent! English is quite different from Korean, if you weren't aware. The kids have a really hard time distinguishing between "L" and "R" and also between "P" and "F." So the word "pour" might come out "four" and the word "stir" might sound like "still." My co-teacher is really good about catching that and making them say it right. But they only have one symbol for those letters, and it gets pronounced differently depending on where it falls in a word. They don't have words that end in an "r" sound, it would always be pronounced "l." So they have a hard time with that!

Besides the six classes we teach each day, there are multiple meetings with our homeroom class to just hang out, to write journals, to practice for their skit at the end of camp (my kids are singing "Summer Nights" from Grease. That's what they get for not picking a song on their own. I am SO EXCITED! They might not share that feeling...), or to give instructions for the day. We have our meal times where we eat with the kids. Then there are the evening activities. My class won the scavenger hunt last night, which I was super excited about. And I may have questioned another team's score and double checked it (resulting in two less points for them) in order to win.....but the kids were so happy!

The kids call me "teacher" or "Amy teacher" or "Amy." They live for stickers. Will choose a sticker over candy EVERY time if given the choice. I love it when they forget I am a silly American teacher and they bow to me in greeting. This is something they would have to do to a normal teacher, but sometimes out of habit they just do it to us. They have crazy long days and must be even more exhausted than me, but still have such good attitudes for the most part and just power through no matter what. They are fascinated with my height. Even more fascinated than American kids. They looove rock-paper-scissors (kai-bai-bo or something in Korean), but their version is quite violent and sometimes causes tears to be shed. And they are just adorable and so smart and goofy!

I think I'm more tired than I ever have been in my life! And talking to Ben makes me miss him a whole lot. And videos from my amazing roommate Megan make me miss my apartment and my roommates. And pictures of Sierra and the family make me miss everyone else! I am preeetttty ready to be back home. There are four more days of camp. Then 5 days of traveling. Then home sweet home! Nine days never seemed so long...

I am having a good time and am glad I had this opportunity! But five weeks is a long time to be working 13 hour days and be away from a boyfriend and missing things back home! I will come away from this trip with lots of memories and having learned a lot. But I will also come away with it ready to stay home for a while :) But can I bring home a dozen or so 12 year old Koren kids with me?

Monk-photos

Our lovely outfits waiting for us in our room.

And our lovely room!


Morning prayer-4am


No shoes allowed in the temple/dining room!


Inside the temple for morning prayer


Breakfast...


These guys take their breakfast seriously.


Gardening. Not by choice.


This symbol seems familiar for some reason....?


Beautiful hike with some monks.



And SWIMMING with the monks!


Tea meditation. Much better than regular meditation.





Sewing a handkerchief that we had previously dyed.
Please ignore how gross I look.



Some sort of ceremony. That turned into us being photographed
by visiting Korean women there to honor their ancestors.





Sometimes after a hard three days at a Buddhist temple,
you have to start drinking as soon as you get on the bus...

This is me ringing a bell. They let every single one of us come through and ring it. This is not normally something that foreigners do. They kind of doted on us hand and foot the whole time, I think they were super excited to have so many visitors. I think it must have been too loud because the sound cuts out when the bell actually gets hit. Also, what you think is feedback is probably the cicadas in the background. They are everywhere. And they are GIANT. And gross.