to sweet beginnings and bitter endings

last week on friday i decided to make camp very low key and fun. i played twister with my kids during one of the 4 "class periods" we have. the last one of the day we made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as well. it was an awesome day! 

the beginning of twister...

the kids kept calling him a frog because of his green shirt

this is minnie. she is absolutely adorable :)

these boys got sooooo into it

the two final champions, jake and leonardo

these girls are twins. their English names are Ann and Annie. :)

they were very excited for the sandwiches

these girls are adorable. :)

very excited! they asked for more. 

 needless to say... twister and pb&j were a hit. this week involves, line dancing, the macarena, frisbee, rice krispee treats and the movie Cars! should be a good last week of camp.

memory lane up in the headlights, it's got me reminiscing on them good times

my new mantra for the year. and i am happy to say i have already done half of them :-)

chances are....

so many countdowns to update... 

7 more days of summer camp to get through... almost halfway done. which is good. but it's actually gone really well so far. minus the weather. which is totally gonna ruin my plans for next week as far as activities and such. BOO! here's hoping it doesn't rain this friday, or really at all next week. it will just ruin too many things for me to replace. 

4 days of desk warming to get through. and i found out i will be in the office ALONE! what does this mean.... i will be blaring my music and not doing anything productive. at all. which will be grand. since i have to be here, i mine as well make the best of a crappy situation. 

10 days left with the wimp of a dog i am currently watching. seriously this dog is afraid of EVERYTHING!!! the rain, my large umbrella, my washing machine, my blow dryer, the vacuum, walking over sewer grates, walking around corners. basically everything. such a wimp.
 
15 DAYS TILL THAILAND!!! oh my goodness i cannot wait to go. it cannot come soon enough! it's going to be sooooo amazing! 

i have a group of 3rd-4th grade girls who i absolutely adore. they are so cute. :) 

they keep me pretty entertained through the 4 hours i am with them each day. now to just get through the next 7 days with no problems. i have lost one student already after the first day. his mother apparently overbooked him for classes he was taking, so English camp overlapped with something else, so he dropped out. fine by me... since he made all the boys just talk all the time. 

i now have 2 hours left sitting here at my desk with nothing to do. i'm prepped for tomorrow and friday already. maybe i will take a nap. there are two beds in the back half of the office i could use. will definitely be using them during my 4 days of desk warming. 

someone needs to save me from my boredom... please!

life is good today

this past weekend was the long awaited weekend of MUDFEST! dani and i both heard about it from audra and clayton upon our arrival to korea and we were told it's a must do while here. so finally after being here for almost 5 months, the weekend of mudfest arrived. 

a group of 11 of us made our way to the train station and took the KTX train down to Daecheon and then took a taxi to Boryeong, checked into our pension and headed to the festival. this was a weekend full of nothing but mud. head to toe covered in mud, for two days! 

playing card games on the train ride

we attempted to nap... wasn't happening.

taxi ride to our pension.

beginning of day 2!

jumping for the photographers

day 2 mudders!

so much mud everywhere...

such an awesome weekend in the mud

team thailand (minus 1)

after getting home sunday night, the first thing i did was take a shower... for 40 minutes. i washed my hair a total of 4 times before all the mud was gone and i felt clean. then took another shower in the morning. after getting to school on monday, a friend posted a picture someone found on Naver (Korean search engine... like google) we made the korean news! check it out!


the next big adventure will be THAILAND in 23 days!! but first i must make it through 2 weeks of summer camp and 4 days of deskwarming...

i'd do anything you want me to

upon my arrival in korea, i thought i was going to be teaching 2nd grade. i quickly learned i would be teaching 5th/6th grade with an after-school class of 1st/2nd graders. when i first started with them, i was terrified. they were monsters. they didn't speak english and i didn't speak korean, the co-teacher couldn't control them, i couldn't control them and they were all over the place. 

that somewhat quickly changed. they finally started to semi-listen to me, not that they really understood what i was saying. but we were able to get through a lesson without a child trying to smack me, or climb on top of the tables, or run around screaming. 


since then these kids have really grown on me. it probably also helps that my 6th graders have become the bane of my existence. they are the worst. sure there are times when my 1st/2nd graders can be a handful, but i truly do look forward to seeing them thursday afternoons. 

my 1st/2nd graders :)

this is Woong, the devil child

they were hiding from me and jumping up from behind the wall

very much into watching the mickey mouse clip

this is Min-Joo, she is attached to me throughout the whole class

her letting me a take a picture of her is a big step. usually she just runs away. 

next week is my last week with them for the semester until september. yes i will miss them, but i am also very happy for a month and a half vacation from them.

'til now, i've always been a quitter

Lovely Advice 

Health:

1. Drink plenty of water.                                                                           
2. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar.
3. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.
4. Live with the 3 E’s - Energy, Enthusiasm and Empathy
5. Play more games.
6. Read more books than you did in 2010.
7. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day.
8. Sleep for 7 hours.
9. Take a 10-30 minutes walk daily. And while you walk, smile.

Personality:

1. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
2. Don’t have negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.
3. Don’t over do. Keep your limits.
4. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
5. Don’t waste your precious energy on gossip.
6. Dream more while you are awake.
7. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
8. Forget issues of the past. Don’t remind your partner with his/her mistakes of the past. That will ruin your present happiness.
9. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. Don’t hate others.
10. Make peace with your past so it won’t spoil the present.
11. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
12. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.
13. Smile and laugh more.
14. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

Society:

1. Call your family often.
2. Each day give something good to others.
3. Forgive everyone for everything.
4. Spend time with people over the age of 70 & under the age of 6.
5. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
6. What other people think of you is none of your business.
7. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.

Life:

1. Do the right thing!
2. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.
3. However good or bad a situation is, it will change. 
4. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
5. The best is yet to come.
6. Your Inner most is always happy. So, be happy.

oh i wanna go crazy, wanna go crazy with you

this past weekend, my friend jennie invited me to go along with her and join her co-teacher for her family reunion. i figured it would be an interesting experience so i joined in. they rented a bus and saturday morning we left ilsan and headed south to, jeolla-do. probably the longest bus ride i have been on so far in korea. it took about 4-5 hours one way. 

thankfully this included many stops along the way so we could stretch our legs. and eat. one of the many things learned on this trip, koreans are always going to try and feed you. at all times and no matter what it is. "eat more, eat more" needless to say i was never hungry on this trip. no was there a shortage of alcohol on this trip either. 

once we arrived to our location, which i am still not sure where exactly we were. the closest city i remember going through/by would be gunsan, which was about an hour north of where we were. once we arrived, we decided we were going to sleep "korean style" while at the pension. this basically means there were a collection of blankets we had to layer to make into a mat of some sort to sleep on. our pillows were also stuffed with cut up straws. yes that would be cut up drinking straws... so random. 

from there we loaded back up on the bus and made our way to the yellow sea. once we arrived jennie and i were surprised to not actually see the sea, but just sand and such. the tide was out, and by out i mean you couldn't see the water at all. 

this was also where we were given our first fish to try. i have no idea what it was, we were handed the fish and sauce and told to eat it. so we did. and yes they filmed it. it was a white piece of fish that was full of bones. and yes we had to eat the bones. needless to say, we won't be eating it again. from there we went to eat dinner. this is where we ate our second sea animal... eel. now being from oregon and near the coast, you would think i would have eaten eel before, but no i haven't, nor will i ever again. it wasn't terrible, just not something i will do again. i can mark it off my list. 

 

this is also where the beginning of mass amounts of alcohol came in. in the region we were in, they are famous for their "strawberry wine". and i put it in quotes, because honestly it wasn't wine. you do not take shots of wine. and that's exactly what we did. many shots. we also took turns singing different songs. which thankfully neither jennie or i were filmed doing, because it wasn't pretty. afterwards we were supposed to have a BBQ, but alas the weather ruined those plans. 

back to the pension and just when we thought our night was over, someone knocks on our door. the children were sent to bring us to a room, where there was more drinking and fruit. so for the next hour or so jennie and i sat there, drinking our beer and eating watermelon as the family discussed money. finally we were told we were allowed to leave. 

sunday was supposed to start at 6am with a hike to a temple. after being awakened by not one, but two text messages at 5:30, there was no way i was getting up, and i promptly went back to bed. apparently no one got up either. so the hike, which really wasn't a hike, was put off till after breakfast. 

after the temple visit, it wasn't raining so the BBQ was back on. that idea quickly went bad when it started pouring. thankfully they had a canopy and we were somewhat dry. after the BBQ began the long bus ride back to ilsan. thankfully it went by rather quick since i slept most of the way. plus the second half was fun because the children finally warmed up to jennie and i and we played with them. 

  overall it was a good experience and was actually a lot of fun. 

because i'm counting to 100 and i promise i won't peek

it's almost 11pm on thursday night. i can't sleep. story of my life i know. i know i have said this before, but i am really starting to miss people. i'm at that mark where it happens. i get it in waves and it varies at the time of who i am missing... right now i am missing two pretty amazing little girls more than anything. 

i am missing getting woke up at the crack of dawn by little hands getting shoved under my pillow and my head shaken and hearing, "wake up kayla, i wanna play with you." i miss two little heads poke into the bathroom and watch me as i put my make-up on, begging for me to do their faces too. i miss playing dress-up with them. 

i miss getting random phone calls from these two because they have something very important to tell me and couldn't wait. i miss them singing me songs just because. i miss them stealing my shoes and wearing them all over the house. i miss them dressing up using my purses and scarves. 

these girls are two of the greatest kids in the world. and i miss them terribly. i am far away right now and for now skype will have to do. but come march... i fully plan on stealing these children for the weekend. i love you girls! i can't wait to see you. :)