i am thankful: i think God is watching out for me...

i've gotten through my first month of full-time teaching. believe me, it hasn't been easy at times, but not like it's rocket science either. i think the hardest thing to get used to is working 6 days a week. and only 1 day of rest. but then again, if you're a mom, you never get rest, right? i should be thankful. and i am. i was given a different schedule for the month of november. one american teacher left for detroit today so i took over some of his classes. i had this one beginner class (all first-graders) and it was taken back by their original teacher. i was instead assigned a storytelling class. one that the detroit teacher had bragged about. what do i do in there? i read to 4-5 yr olds or they read to me! they're soooo cute too. one boy speaks english really well. i think he's 5. he said on the first day, "teacher. iraq. america. war. boom!" kids are cute...

well, sometimes. i found out something totally gross the other day. on my last day of teaching that beginner class of first-graders, one of the boys who usually had been sooo loud was unusually quiet. i kept checking up on his during class and he just sat there looking so down. near the end of class i could see him nodding off a bit. i went to check on him again and i see this huge, GREEN BOOGER BALLOON forming on the tip of his nose. i told him, "bathroom! bathroom!" but he wouldn't budge. i felt his forehead, but he seemed ok. when the bell rang, i told his other teacher that i thought he was sick. and i left for my other class. what i DIDN'T realize (b/c i had a stuffy nose) is that he went #2 in his pants!! GROSS!!! he's about 6 or 7, but still. nasty. the other teacher had to take him to the bathroom. but he wouldn't get up from his desk. so she pushed and pulled the desk to the boys' restroom. then he still wouldn't get up. so she called for the kindergarten teacher (who had lots of experience with cleaning up messes) and that teacher took care of it. freakin' i am SOOOO glad i didn't have to deal with that mess. i don't know what i would do. blech.

anyways, i still have a bit of a cold. one canadian teacher told me he had a cold for 3 months!! i hope that doesn't happen to me. >.<

the other night i went out with the teachers from school and we, actually they, had some drinks. i had a lemon cocktail (mixed with vodka). it barely had alcohol in it at first, but when one of the other teachers drank a sip of it, she immediately took it to the bar and had the bartender put more. then i had a hard time drinking it. man, drinking is NOT for me. i had half of the cocktail and my face was pink and my heart was beating faster. i came home that night and all i could hear was my heart beating. i'm such a baby, i know. :)

alright time for school. oh and the "sang doo" drama ended. i cried so much. but definitely a great drama to watch. totally worth my time and tears. (^.^)v

Squirted 9:23 PM by E-J Yi

more illegal photos are up. mostly of my kids. sorry for some of the blurryness (spelling?). when u have tonz of kids swarming at you so they can get in the frame, i couldn't help but get some blurry pics. anyways, enjoy! :D

Squirted 8:57 PM by E-J Yi

beauty is in the eye of the beholder: guessing this will be a long entry...

i never knew that halloween was such a big deal here in korea. my school put up decorations and some teachers wore costumes and handed out candy. i even heard of parties in apkujung being thrown for the holiday. anyways, since halloween was a "special" day at ECC, i decided to take advantage of the situation and take illegal pictures of my kids!! whoopee~!!! (unfortunately, i don't have all of them up at the moment, but check back later, folks.) i call them my illegal pics b/c supposedly we're not supposed to take pics of the kids, but other teachers do it and so will i. how else will i remember them? some of the kids, i thought, were super cute, but when i showed my cousin she didn't think they were cute at all. except for a couple. but yeah, we both realized that people truly see others so differently. oh and as u will see, freakin' everybody does that "peace" sign. i guess they think it's cute or something. *shrug*

anyways, friday also marked the day of the singing contests in 2 of my classes. my smartest class was doing the "larger than life" singing contest while the other class was able to sing any english pop song they wanted. the "larger than life" participants sang very well. i am sending out the avi clips (use quicktime player) to those i thought might be interested, but if u wanna see (and i haven't sent it to you), email me. :) the other class, 2 girls sang westlife's "my love". pronounciation was okay i guess, but i didn't help them at all so i guess it was good. another student sang gareth gates (i think some singer from england) song. i dunno if it's called "it can happen to anyone of us" or something, but she was too embarrassed to sing the rest. anyways, it was a fun for everybody to listen, especially for me. :)

as a prize, i took the girls out to dinner on saturday. we ate tonkatsu (yum!) and then went to a nohraebang (singing room) afterwards. it was mucho fun. and we got a discount. it was originally 15,000 won per hour (about $14 or so), but he said he would only charge 13,000 won. (big whoop!) then as we were nearing the end of our hour, he added more minutes. and added more. and more. and more. we started at 6. ended at 8:30!!! he gave us an extra hour and a half~! so nice, huh? i'm DEFINITELY going there again!

and i did all this with a cold. haha. i've got a full-blown cold and it hasn't gotten any better. hopefully it will get better soon b/c i was a dumb-butt and forgot i had cold medicine (my dad packed) until today. i had only been taking cough medicine. so i'm hoping i feel better tomorrow.

i was going to go to Church today with my cousin, but i woke up dizzy and congested that i didn't think i could make it. i felt really bad cuz my cousin had to go by herself and then she goes and brings home pretzels! i introduced them to her here and she LOVES them!! haha. so all day i've been resting and eating.

i was hoping that some station would televise the mavs vs. lakers game, but no such luck. they showed phoenix vs. cleveland, but that got old. lebron was throwing too many passes out of bounds. i wish i had seen the kings game with him playing. seemed like a SHOW. anyways, this week they're televising the spurs vs. lakers and next week MAVS vs. rockets! yes~! something to look forward too. hehe!

well, seems that so many people are using the internet now so i'm not able to upload or send out anything yet so i will have to wait until tomorrow. till then, have a good week! and GO MAVS!!!

Squirted 6:21 AM by E-J Yi