just a little update!

My week:

Work: A little rough, not due to the children, all is well now!

Life (outside of work): Lovely! I received two very wonderful care packages in the mail!  One was from my mom and had some of her wonderful homemade salsa, some Frank's hot sauce (my favorite! but I can't get it here), honey, and some other wonderful things from home that I miss.  The other package that I got was from Dani, she also sent me some wonderful love! Not only did I get mac n' cheese (also not available in Korea), but she made me some really wonderful things as well!  She made me a pillow that says HUGZ on it, she sent it because when I was talking to her one day I told her I really just wanted a hug from home, so she sent me one the best way she knew how.

That is Lola and me with my HUGZ pillow...Lola wasn't too excited about the picture...the box also contained another pillow case that says Thugs n' Kittens...that is an inside joke of sorts because we like to sign our emails Thugs n' Kittens instead of hugs and kisses...hmmm...perhaps that should have been kept inside, oh well!  There were also some lovely headbands and a really really really good cd that she made for me.  Both packages certainly made me feel very, very loved and made for a lovely surprise!

The not so lovely part of my week was this morning when I had to send off another friend.  Man, this is tough, and certainly my least favorite part of living here.  I said this before, you get so close with people here, and I have found such an awesome group of people that anyone's absence is certainly felt, but I welcome the new people and look forward to seeing those who left in the future!

Well that sums up my week. Now I am going to try and be productive with my time and get some lesson plans done, go grocery shopping, and hopefully clean up my apartment a bit. 

dang, rereading the last part it does not sound like I am just a kid on some traveling adventure, but like I am an adult who actually moved across the world and has become quite settled.

crazy.

Happy Chuseok!

Ok, so this post really has nothing to do with Chuseok at all, but I don't work today or tomorrow because of Chuseok so I am quite happy about that!

Everything is still going well but I was getting a little homesick a few days ago and as I was skyping Dani my friend Sabrina knocked on my door and invited me to her place for dinner, she said it was going to be a Chinese meal with three other people who could not speak English, but I gladly accepted the invite.  It was kind of funny, as I was sitting there listening in on a conversation I could not understand, eating delicious food that was completely foreign to me my homesickness went away.  Even though I miss my friends and family from home so much, I have such a great little family over here that homesickness doesn't last too long because we all look out for one another, and it is pretty great.

Not too much has happened since my last post, this weekend was a fun one though, filled with noraebang and the usual Seosan shenanigans.  I have spent a good portion of today looking into the GRE and getting the itch to go back to school, I am also trying to figure out how get my camera fixed because some pretty cool adventures are being planned right now.

Also, I was finally able to upload pictures of the view from hostel in Busan from about a month ago.  These were all taken right across the street from my hostel.

The building on the left is where my hostel was.

Holy wow, I almost forgot how awesome that place was...I'll probably have to go back soon!

That's all for now.

Keep it real.

i am berry berry berry berry berry i love you Amy Teacher and love you Lola.

Everyday I begin class with my youngest students by asking them how they are doing.  At first their responses were a quick happy or angry, etc., then they began to say berry (very) about a million times, so I had to limit them to only 5 berries, which I used to count but they now do that themselves.  After a little while they began to get more creative with their responses, Griffen would say he was, "berry berry berry berry berry popcorn," so I wrote his name on the board as Popcorn, then students would say they are very hot summer, a berry berry berry berry berry terrible and catchy k-pop song.

When I first got Lola I brought in a picture of her for my student's to see and now, and for about the past two weeks, almost if not all of my students will say, "I am berry berry berry berry berry berry I love you Amy Teacher and I love you Lola," ugh.  I melt every morning.  Now I can't walk by their classroom or go through a portion of class without a student raising their hand to tell me that they love either myself, Lola, or both of us. It is wonderful.

I was also anxiously awaiting the day when my students would draw me and, that day has come!  Here is the first picture that was drawn of me by a student:

This was done by Sky, he is not in the class that I mentioned previously, though he is the student who told me I was his little kimchi...so I am pretty sure he does like me.

The next two were done by girls in the class that I was just talking about...they have a very interesting depiction of my insulin pump...

And, last but not least...SUPER LOLA! 

That is almost an exact replica of the picture I draw on the board every day...probably because I am just that bad at drawing.

School is going very well!  I also started another teaching job last night, my boss is putting me on loan to another hagwon to teach an adult class.  At first I was very nervous, not only am I teaching adults but his wife is also in the class; however, after last night I am pretty confident that the class is going to go very well.  I was nervous about how to go about teaching adults since I am used to instructing 5-12 year olds, but I was quite comfortable in front of the class and their level of English is much beyond what I expected so I think it is going to be a fun few months with them!

Other than that I did go to a baseball game a few weeks ago and it was a lot of fun! No pictures though, I still haven't gotten my camera fixed.  I also went on a wine train this past weekend and that was just as much fun as it sounds!  I sat on a train with my good friends and drank wine, it was lovely!  

This weekend brings another break, yay for Korean Thanksgiving!  I don't have plans to go anywhere though, I think hanging out in Seosan will be nice and relaxing and give me an opportunity to put a dent in the book I have started, address the post cards I wrote out about three weeks ago, and do a little yoga, plus I think Lola will enjoy actually having me in the apartment for more than sleeping.

Life is good, really really good.

: )

shoot, I was afraid this was going to happen.

While looking at Dani's blog I realized that I have completely neglected my own for quite some time, and for that I apologize.  I also apologize because I don't have many new pictures to put up : (  My camera died a few weeks ago so I need to figure out what to send in to use my warranty and get it fixed.

However, just because I don't have many pictures to put up does not mean that things aren't happening.  First, I am still OBSESSED with Korean t-shirts, this one is my best find yet!

Seriously?! How awesome.

This next one is a close second:

When I took the picture I didn't know how to use the flip function on my computer, but incase you can't tell that says, "Boston, MassachuBATTS." ugh. so good. 

Also, after much thinking and talking with friends, I decided to get a cat. Her name is Lola and she is so incredibly wonderful.  I have lovely friends here, but it is so nice to come home to something!  Here she is: 

Once my camera is fixed I am sure there will be many more photos.  She is sooo perfect.  She sleeps next to me, hops up on the couch when I pat it, and is so excited to see me when I come home from work. 

I haven't been on any crazy adventures lately, but staying in Seosan has been nice.  My students are wonderful as always.  I have several classes that I am particularly fond of and I refer to them as my sugar dumplings, when doing that one day my student, Sky, replied, "Teacher, if I am your sugar dumpling then you are my little kimchi," how absolutely adorable. I melted. 

Last night was the first time that I had to say goodbye to a friend and, unfortunately, many of the people who I have become very close with will be leaving within the next two months.  I realize I have not known these people for very long but goodness, we have such a tight knit group here and when someone leaves you certainly feel it.  It was a bummer to say bye, but I know we will keep in touch and in coming here I knew that I was replacing someone and someday someone will be replacing me, unfortunate that it works that way and that people come and go so often, but that is only more wonderful people to have in my life, more couches to crash on and places to visit when I get back to the states!

That's all for now, but plans for a baseball game are in the works for this weekend so hopefully some fun will result from that!

I'll try to shorten the distance between this post and the next!

my mom reminded me that it had been a little while since i had posted anything...

Sorry about that...

My last post was during my vacation and right before I went to Busan!  Busan is a very lovely city on the southeastern coast of Korea, I went there with my friend Joe and we stayed there for four wonderful days.

We left Seosan on Thursday afternoon headed toward Daejon to catch the KTX (a train that goes super fast) and got into Busan around 9:00 on Thursday night.  The Korean countryside is really pretty, here are some pictures from the KTX:

Once we got to the hostel we were staying at we received a warm welcome from Tiger, who runs the hostel, and all of the other travelers there.  It was pretty cool, everyone was hanging out like they were at a friend's house and discussing their plans for the evening, which they wanted to make sure we were included in!  We had missed dinner with them so we went to grab a bite to eat and met up with them a little later on in the evening...Tiger certainly knows how to show his guests a good time.

Once we woke up on Friday we went venturing around Busan, it is a pretty big city but has a very great public transportation system, as does most of Korea, so getting around was really easy.  We had planned on going to the beach but instead wound up spending the majority of the day wandering around different shops and I bought a really cool pair of orange shoes for 5,000 won (about $5.00), and was quite pleased.  That night we went out to dinner with a group of people from the hostel and had Korean BBQ, I seriously cannot get enough of it, it is SO GOOD!

There were quite a few of us, i'm not sure where everyone was when I took these pictures, but these were all that I took at dinner...

After dinner we went to a bar called Thursday Party, it was MADE for foreigners.  They have a beer pong table, darts, and reasonably priced beer, it was lovely.  Once we decided we were done there we moved on to a different Thursday Party (there are 8 in Busan) in another part of town where I met several people from MN and a bunch of other foreigners who live in Busan, it is always lovely to meet new foreigners.  We decided to end that night a little earlier than we had the night before, which was fine with me, so we hopped in a cab and went back to the hostel.

Saturday we went to the aquarium, it was pretty cool, and I took a ton of pictures!  But, before heading in to the aquarium Joe and I thought it would be a good idea to get artificial tattoos of cats, they made us look pretty tough.

We also ran into some large dancing fish people...they were pretty cool.

Then, we entered the aquarium!

There were some pretty cool fish there, unfortunately, I cannot remember what many of them were...

After the aquarium we went back the hostel to see what everyone else was up to and plan our adventure for out last night in Busan.  First we went to dinner with some of the people from the hostel and had sashimi which is raw fish!  I was nervous, but it was actually really good!

These are all of the complimentary sides they give you.

Including shrimp...with eyeballs still attached...

This was the sashimi.

After dinner they gave us soup, complete with a fish head and brains still inside... 

When dinner was done we wandered off to the beach in search of a music festival that we could not find so, instead, we sat on the beach and enjoyed some games, lovely conversation, and watching the tide, which was crazy because there was a typhoon in Japan on its way towards us.

Fortunately for us, the typhoon changed its path and went to China, though it was pretty serious, several of my friends were stuck in Shanghai for several days on their way back from Thailand because of it and around 200,000 people had to be evacuated from their homes.

We made it back without too many complications and I think now, over a week later, I am finally caught up on sleep.  I was going to post some pictures of the view from my hostel, which was right across the street from the ocean, but after an hour of trying to upload them I am done waiting.  I will try again later and write more soon!  I also have today off for Korean Independence day so I am going to go wander around and find a good place to read my book and write some postcards!