Despite the fact that it snowed several inches yesterday, this morning I walked to church with no scarf, no hat, no gloves, and no socks. At least I had a coat on... but what has California (or maybe jetlag) done to my understanding of winter?
I'm going to have to quickly readjust my clothing choices.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Friday, January 2, 2009
Top 10 of 2008
In honor of New Year’s, a few top 10 lists to highlight the ups and downs of the year:
Top 10 Things I’m proud of myself for doing in 2008:
10. Going on my 7th house-building trip (to The Philippines)
9. Feeling comfortable in my community in Korea and finding my niche
8. Hiking Mt. Fuji
7. Finishing my first year of full time teaching
6. I no longer have to repeat myself for a taxi driver a million times before he understands my Korean—most of the time, once is enough
5. Jumping 12,000 ft. out of a plane when I am a) uneasy on planes and b) afraid of heights
4. Understanding global issues better and trying to not just learn about them, but act
3. Coaching soccer and encouraging the girls to improve, bit by bit
2. Traveling alone to 5 countries
1. Deepening my faith and pushing myself outside my comfort zone
**********************************************
Top 10 Things I’ve learned in 2008:
10. All the lingo associated with International Baccalaureate (IBO) and the million and one acronyms used by staff at my school
9. How to play volleyball with my hands (I no longer serve with my feet!)
8. I can now speak a bit more Korean (thanks to Annette)
7. Basic techniques of drawing and painting (also thanks to Annette and her willingness to let me join her high school class)
6. That I’m highly prone to caffeine addictions
5. That Canada is a lot more interesting and cool than I thought it was before working with so many Canadians
4. That North Koreans should be helped, not feared
3. That I am outgoing enough to solo travel
2. Human trafficking is a very real issue and I need to find ways to help fight against it
1. There is SO much that I do not know or understand
************************************************
Top 10 challenges in 2008:
10. Time or lack thereof—so many things I want to do in a day!
9. A lot of really long flights (I spent well over 80 hours in the air this year!)
8. Calling people in different time zones—there’s a 17 hour difference during the winter!
7. Cooking in a small space with different availability of ingredients
6. Adjusting to my new community in Korea (this has been a continuous process since I moved)
5. Learning to collaborate with such a wide range of people
4. A complete lack of single males in my community (why do I always seem to end up in programs or places with WAY more single females than single males?)
3. Very limited visiting time to the States
2. Communication—Korean is a really difficult language
1. Being so far away from people I love
**********************************************
Top 10 Strangest things I’ve done/seen in 2008:
10. dragged about 10 people to sled down a baby bunny hill for numerous hours for my 25th birthday (in my defense, I had no idea the hill was going to be so small)
9. worked at a school where it is totally normal for my students to call my personal cell, leave me facebook messages, and stay at my apartment when the dorms close
8. hiked a massive Korean mountain in the middle of the night
7. hung out naked with a bunch of coworkers at jimjilbangs on a regular basis
6. ate a scorpion, seahorse, and roach in a street market in China and snake in Taiwan
5. friended my mom on facebook
4. got body slammed by a Buddhist monk trying to get on the subway in Seoul
3. skydived in New Zealand
2. interacted with kids in the Philippines who had been rescued from child trafficking
1. spooned with a full grown tiger in Thailand
********************************************
For 2009, the top 10 things I would like to accomplish:
10. Learn to cook some Korean food
9. Find a boy (what single straight female honestly doesn’t want this?)
8. Visit a region of the world I have never traveled to (South America? Africa? The Middle East?)
7. Speak and understand Korean better
6. Continue to work on finding balance in my life (as you well know, I always try to put too much on my plate)
5. Eat and live in a healthier manner
4. Do a better job keeping a Sabbath day
3. Learn how to best use my talents and resources to fight human trafficking
2. Continue to grow (spiritually, emotionally, professionally)
1. Maintain close relationships with the people I care about (even when they are thousands of miles away)
Top 10 Things I’m proud of myself for doing in 2008:
10. Going on my 7th house-building trip (to The Philippines)
9. Feeling comfortable in my community in Korea and finding my niche
8. Hiking Mt. Fuji
7. Finishing my first year of full time teaching
6. I no longer have to repeat myself for a taxi driver a million times before he understands my Korean—most of the time, once is enough
5. Jumping 12,000 ft. out of a plane when I am a) uneasy on planes and b) afraid of heights
4. Understanding global issues better and trying to not just learn about them, but act
3. Coaching soccer and encouraging the girls to improve, bit by bit
2. Traveling alone to 5 countries
1. Deepening my faith and pushing myself outside my comfort zone
**********************************************
Top 10 Things I’ve learned in 2008:
10. All the lingo associated with International Baccalaureate (IBO) and the million and one acronyms used by staff at my school
9. How to play volleyball with my hands (I no longer serve with my feet!)
8. I can now speak a bit more Korean (thanks to Annette)
7. Basic techniques of drawing and painting (also thanks to Annette and her willingness to let me join her high school class)
6. That I’m highly prone to caffeine addictions
5. That Canada is a lot more interesting and cool than I thought it was before working with so many Canadians
4. That North Koreans should be helped, not feared
3. That I am outgoing enough to solo travel
2. Human trafficking is a very real issue and I need to find ways to help fight against it
1. There is SO much that I do not know or understand
************************************************
Top 10 challenges in 2008:
10. Time or lack thereof—so many things I want to do in a day!
9. A lot of really long flights (I spent well over 80 hours in the air this year!)
8. Calling people in different time zones—there’s a 17 hour difference during the winter!
7. Cooking in a small space with different availability of ingredients
6. Adjusting to my new community in Korea (this has been a continuous process since I moved)
5. Learning to collaborate with such a wide range of people
4. A complete lack of single males in my community (why do I always seem to end up in programs or places with WAY more single females than single males?)
3. Very limited visiting time to the States
2. Communication—Korean is a really difficult language
1. Being so far away from people I love
**********************************************
Top 10 Strangest things I’ve done/seen in 2008:
10. dragged about 10 people to sled down a baby bunny hill for numerous hours for my 25th birthday (in my defense, I had no idea the hill was going to be so small)
9. worked at a school where it is totally normal for my students to call my personal cell, leave me facebook messages, and stay at my apartment when the dorms close
8. hiked a massive Korean mountain in the middle of the night
7. hung out naked with a bunch of coworkers at jimjilbangs on a regular basis
6. ate a scorpion, seahorse, and roach in a street market in China and snake in Taiwan
5. friended my mom on facebook
4. got body slammed by a Buddhist monk trying to get on the subway in Seoul
3. skydived in New Zealand
2. interacted with kids in the Philippines who had been rescued from child trafficking
1. spooned with a full grown tiger in Thailand
********************************************
For 2009, the top 10 things I would like to accomplish:
10. Learn to cook some Korean food
9. Find a boy (what single straight female honestly doesn’t want this?)
8. Visit a region of the world I have never traveled to (South America? Africa? The Middle East?)
7. Speak and understand Korean better
6. Continue to work on finding balance in my life (as you well know, I always try to put too much on my plate)
5. Eat and live in a healthier manner
4. Do a better job keeping a Sabbath day
3. Learn how to best use my talents and resources to fight human trafficking
2. Continue to grow (spiritually, emotionally, professionally)
1. Maintain close relationships with the people I care about (even when they are thousands of miles away)
Thursday, December 25, 2008
A few glimpses of home
It has been great to be home for the holidays. Here are a few highlight shots from my holiays thus far:
Hawley Christmas party:
Trip to Long Barn with some of my high school friends:
Family time:
Facebook album of the holidays thus far:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2134022&l=9fb51&id=4702163
Hawley Christmas party:
Trip to Long Barn with some of my high school friends:
Family time:
Facebook album of the holidays thus far:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2134022&l=9fb51&id=4702163
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Flashback to Group Bath Time
Tonight I ate a pomegranate. As I glanced around my kitchen that slightly resembled a crime scene with dark red fruit splatters haphazardly strewn along the counters, my memory leapt back to elementary school. In my mind’s eye I replayed a scene where all three of us kids were crammed into the bathtub and stripped before we were allowed to eat our respective pomegranate segments. Three kids in a tub with a lot of messy fruit and one smart mother.
While we’ve long since outgrown group bath time, I am so grateful that next week my brothers and I will be in the same place. For the first time in a year and a half my entire immediate family will be in the same house. And for Christmas! I’m pretty darn stoked.
Writing 2 Final Exam
My sophomore writing students had to present the cultures that they researched at our class "museum" for their final exam. Here are a few of my students with their creative masterpieces :)
Friday, December 12, 2008
More calculations
I'm thinking about quitting English teaching and taking up math instruction instead. I mean, no more papers...clear right/wrong answers...fewer ESL issues...no grammar instruction...no more papers...no more papers... no more papers!!!
Okay, so I'm not really thinking about teaching math. But these days, a couple (or several hundred) fewer pages of student writing would be pretty nice. I did some rough calculations below on the hours of my life I've used grading papers this semester.
I teach 3 courses: Writing 1, Writing 2, and English 10. This semesters I have read (with varying degrees of seriousness) the following:
approx. 25 pages for each of my 8 writing 1 students (approx. 400 total)
approx. 36 pages for each of my 30 writing 2 students (approx. 1080 total)
approx. 45 pages for each of my 37 English 10 students (approx. 1665 total)
=3,145 pages of student writing in the last 4 months. And I teach really small classes in comparison to the states!! What was I thinking when I chose to teach English?!?
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Dancing with Jesus (and a few good friends)
I swear I'm not trying to be sacrilegious. I'm just procrastinating.... and slightly obsessed with Elf Yourself.
http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/I0lFcua9lvzoy6aAAvuT
http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/I0lFcua9lvzoy6aAAvuT
Monday, December 8, 2008
1,687 is the magic number.
As you might guess by the frequency of my recent blog posts, I am trying to avoid the massive piles of papers to grade, comments to write, and student excuses to address that accompany the last week of classes before finals. Accordingly, I took the night off and went to the jimjilbang.
In my attempts to avoid real work, I have have also completed the following pointless calculation:
I have now spent approx. 16 months in Korea. I tend to go to the jimjilbang approximately one-two times a month:
16 x 1.5=24
Each time I go to the jimjilbang, I probably encouter a minimum of 45 people in the sauna area:
24 x 45=1080
Several times I have far exceeded my 1.5 times a month (ex: vacations):
1080 + 3(45)=1215
When I was in Pusan I went to a MASSIVE jimjilbang that can hold 2000+ people:
1215 + 250 extras=1455
The next day I went to a jimjilbang with hundreds of extras crammed in:
1455 + 117 extras=1572
Can't forget the public school vacation jimjilbang experience last year (where probably 3 dozen children asked Kirsten and I over and over again how old we were, where we were from, and what our names were)
1572 + 115=
Approximately 1,687 KOREAN WOMEN HAVE SEEN ME NAKED in the last year and a half. About 3 dozen of them are my friends. Another 200 (at least) have asked me where I am from. Wow. Who would have guessed?
In my attempts to avoid real work, I have have also completed the following pointless calculation:
I have now spent approx. 16 months in Korea. I tend to go to the jimjilbang approximately one-two times a month:
16 x 1.5=24
Each time I go to the jimjilbang, I probably encouter a minimum of 45 people in the sauna area:
24 x 45=1080
Several times I have far exceeded my 1.5 times a month (ex: vacations):
1080 + 3(45)=1215
When I was in Pusan I went to a MASSIVE jimjilbang that can hold 2000+ people:
1215 + 250 extras=1455
The next day I went to a jimjilbang with hundreds of extras crammed in:
1455 + 117 extras=1572
Can't forget the public school vacation jimjilbang experience last year (where probably 3 dozen children asked Kirsten and I over and over again how old we were, where we were from, and what our names were)
1572 + 115=
Approximately 1,687 KOREAN WOMEN HAVE SEEN ME NAKED in the last year and a half. About 3 dozen of them are my friends. Another 200 (at least) have asked me where I am from. Wow. Who would have guessed?
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Survived my first turkey!!
This was the weekend of birthdays. In honor of my friend Emily's birthday, a group of us went up to Seoul on Sat. Then on Sunday, Kirstin and I cooked a turkey for a big thanksgiving-ish birthday extravaganza for Emily and Virginia. I can now say that I have officially made a turkey :)
A very cold Myeongdong...can you find the birthday girl?
You never know what characters you'll find on the streets of Seoul
The turkey that Kir and I cooked:
Kirstin and I posing by our masterpiece :)
The birthday girls
A very cold Myeongdong...can you find the birthday girl?
You never know what characters you'll find on the streets of Seoul
The turkey that Kir and I cooked:
Kirstin and I posing by our masterpiece :)
The birthday girls
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Fragments of Fall
New coffee shop in the O-jung Dong:
Last leaves of fall:
Alison's quite the henna artist (getting me excited to go to India this spring!)
TCIS 50th anniversary balloon release (supposedly special biodegradable balloons)
A small portion of the massive table at the TCIS Thanksgiving dinner:
My favorite contribution to the Thanksgiving feast (courtesy of Eric):
Yum!
A few of my soccer girls who are OCKs and MKs(out-of-country missionary kids):
Last leaves of fall:
Alison's quite the henna artist (getting me excited to go to India this spring!)
TCIS 50th anniversary balloon release (supposedly special biodegradable balloons)
A small portion of the massive table at the TCIS Thanksgiving dinner:
My favorite contribution to the Thanksgiving feast (courtesy of Eric):
Yum!
A few of my soccer girls who are OCKs and MKs(out-of-country missionary kids):
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