It's Halloween at school! This was a great slash exhausting day! All the kids dressed up and they got to go around the school and trick or treat at the different classes. That was pretty hectic, getting them all around the floor. The other teachers and I made a haunted house last night, out of trash bags and cardboard haha. But it was pretty good, there was creepy music, spiderwebs, we made a coffin that Miguel would jump out of to scare the kids.

All the teachers dressed up. It was ridiculously hard to find a costume though, since Halloween is basically only celebrated at English hagwons. The major department store near us had a few capes and a few witch hats but that was it. I sewed myself some mouse ears and glued it on a headband (it was supposed to be like in Mean Girls, where Karen says "I'm a mouse...duh!" but apparently there are far fewer people who have seen Mean Girls than I thought). Miguel was a vampire, Ruth a devil/witch, Walker was a zombie of some sort, Gabby a shaman, Kyla an 80s girl, and Alex was a zombie. Basically they were costumes that you could make with clothes you already have and some face makeup.

I guess all the kids have their outfits ordered ahead of time. A lot of the girls came as princesses though, which basically only required a dress they already had, a tiara and a frilly wand. But it was cute none the less. Some of the girls came as witches, devils or angels, but I think that was the extent of the variety. There were a lot of boys dressed as power rangers or super heroes. Tommy came as a dragon which was adorable, and this chubby kids called Ian was a musketeer of some sort, and that was definitely in my top three favorites. There was even a kid dressed up as Santa.

They got to play some Halloween games, for which I was the MC. Getting about 60 little kids to pay attention when all they want to do it play with their costumes and eat candy is pretty hard, but they had fun. We played spoon race and a skeleton scramble where the kids had to put the skeletons body parts int he right places.



This is my class, from left to right is Becky, Julie, Alyssa, Lily and John. It was pretty funny because a few days ago I was drawing an ocean scene on the board, and they kept yelling a word at me (hapadi) and I found out it meant jellyfish. So for days they were trying to get my to pronounce hapadi right (apparently it's haepari, but they're little kids so I can't understand anything they say) and every time I would say it they would just bust up laughing. So today, the only way I could get them to smile for pictures was to say "hapadi" and instantly they would start laughing. Poor John though, he hated today. It was only is third day in school, and I think he was just overwhelmed. After lunch he started crying, and he didn't want to help carve the pumpkin so he sat out. Then he started crying when it came time to leave, so I had to pick him up and take him downstairs for the bus, and he fell asleep on me while we were waiting. It was kinda cute, but I felt bad for the little guy.

During lunch I stepped out to go to the store, so I took my ears off, but I looked even more strange because I still had my whiskers painted on my face. Luckily though I had my ears, so when the people looked at me funny I took them out and they knew it was for Halloween. I can't imagine the looks Walker got since he was dressed in torn up clothes with a pale face and blood.

We got to carve a pumpkin as well. They aren't like American pumpkins, they are more like a squash so we were all a little apprehensive about carving them, especially because we were given non-serrated knives. But it turned out good, the kids helped spoon out the insides, and I was able to carve a face, then we got to light it up. Becky and Lily thought it was hysterical though when they kept blowing out the candles.

By the time it was time to go, I was totally wiped out. And I still had three more classes to teach! Luckily the last two days of the month are test days, so the kids just have to take a big test and basically get to play the rest of the day. So I had my three classes and i survived. Our director bought us dinner too, pizza and chicken. I had some sort of weird pizza with corn, tortilla chips, a potato wedge and sour cream. It was surprisingly good though. I guess Korean's put a lot of weird shit on their pizza.


Below are some of the other pictures. If you have me on Facebook, I have a whole album.


Group shot of my class, minus John because he didn't want to be in it.


Sharon as Snow White

Becky and Lily with their wands and tiaras

Ian as a musketeer

(left to right) Melody, Dora, and Rea



Our finished jack-o-lantern

carving the jack-o-lantern

a pirate attacking Gabby

Tommy as a dragon

Just a week ago I started teaching Miffy Class, and a guy named Matt from Seattle came and took over Tigger Class. For some reason he had a bit of a hard time keeping the kids in line both behaviorally and school work wise. At our school you definitely have to be firm with the kids, you need to be strict, and you do have to yell a lot. I mean, it's a classroom full of 12 6-year-old kids, it's not like they are going to sit quietly and do everything you ask them to. Although they weren't perfect when I left them, I knew how to keep the class in line and on time, but Matt had a problem with that. Even so, it was only his first week, and although the first week is pretty frustrating and overwhelming, it get's better once you get to know the kids and know what works for you class. Apparently Matt didn't want to wait to find out. He left this weekend. Went home. Didn't tell anyone. Just left. I don't know how someone can just leave a job without telling anyone, especially when that job is half way across the world and you have to pay for a ticket back home.

So this threw off everything. Now there is no teacher for the Tigger Class, so my supervisor Naiad had to teach today. And since Matt was taking over the afternoon classes for Alex since she got hit by a bus and can't work, now they don't have a teacher either. So I guess I drew the short stick and have to take over her classes. So instead of having Matthew and Rachel from 3:00-4:30 and a break until 6:00, I have a class of five 8-year-old girls from 3:00-6:00 and James from 6:00-7:30 (on MWF) and then I have two older girls from 4:30-6:00 on Tuesday and Thursday (even though I usually get off at 4:30) along with Nick and Tommy from 3:00-4:30 on Thursday. So MWF are going to suck, I don't even have time to eat. Luckily I can just eat a cup of noodles or something while I work with James. Hopefully once the new teacher that is taking over for Alex comes next week, and we find a replacement for Matt, things will go back to normal. I like Alex's students a lot, but I don't like having to work later.

This was my first week with my new class, the Miffy Class (I think I mentioned befor1e about how all the classes have some sort of cartoon or Disney theme? I guess Miffy is some sort of Korean Bunny character). I was a little sad to leave Tigger Class, but then again, they were a little exasperating. My new class is absolutely ADORABLE! There are only four of them right now (Lily, Becky, Julie, and Alyssa), all are 5 years old (which remember means they are actually 4 years old). Their understanding of English is pretty limited which can be frustrating at times. They have five books that we use throughout the day, and they can repeat words and sentences when I say them, but they have a hard time understanding directions. They also can't read, so that's a little hard. When we're reading a book they basically just repeat what I'm saying.

When the kids start a new class they are usually already given an English name for the class, but one girl didn't have a name yet, so I got to choose her name for her. I went through a few names to see if she was partial to any of them, but no. So eventually I just named her after my BFF Becky! She is super super shy, so it took a while to get her to say her name. I was so proud when she did though. We learned this week how to say "Hello, what's your name" and "My name is ______" and all the girls are pretty good at that. They all know how to spell their names as well. Becky isn't as good, but I think that's because she isn't as familiar with the alphabet, so she needs help writing the letters.

This week we learned about things like school supplies, colors, shapes, counting. They catch on pretty quick. Julie and Alyssa have pretty short attention spans though, so they don't like to do school work for too long. I think I mentioned before that every class has to perform a song at the end of the month. Our song was Louby Loo, we only had a week to practice though, so it wasn't that great come performance time, plus I think they were nervous about being in front of so many people.

Apparently I made a big mistake in Tigger Class. Since about half the class moves too fast and the other half moves slow, when i was trying to keep the class together, I thought it was ok if they missed a few of the answers. Nope. Not ok at all. So I had to go back through all their books and find every blank that they didn't answer, and I have to help them during my break time until all the kids have the right answers. I asked some of the other teachers about that, and they said they made the same mistake, and that it's ok to fill in some of the answer for them, because I guess the parents are really picky, and don't want anything left out. I really really really hate when I get in trouble for something that no one ever told me about. It's extremely frustrating. But whatever, lesson learned, I'll get over it.

Since we don't have to learn too many pages in our workbooks, I try to make games and activities that the girls can do in class to help reiterate what they learned, like having them find colors and shapes in the room or giving them pictures that they have to put up on the wall. We're also making Halloween crafts this week. I made them little ghost necklaces out of glue and we glued together bats that are now laminated and hanging from the ceiling. I'm super excited for Friday because we are having our big Halloween party, and all the kids come dressed up and just play around all day.

The monetary unit of South Korea is called the South Korean Won (pronounced like "wan"), and it's abbreviated like this: ₩. The bills come in denominations of ₩1,000 , ₩5,0000 , and ₩10,000 while the coins come in ₩1, ₩10, ₩50, ₩100, and ₩500. The current exchange rate is about ₩1,000 = 85 cents USD. The way I usually figure it out, is I'll take the price in Won, divide it by 1,000 and then minus a little away. So if something is ₩40,000 I would guess that it would be around $33-$35.

Things here are either cheap or expensive I've found. When it comes to grocery shopping, if you go to the larger Green Marts (but not the big supermarkets) you'll find cheaper prices. Fruits and vegetables are cheap, I can get a bag of pre-peeled garlic cloves, with about 15-20 cloves in it, for about ₩1,500. The packaged food get a little more expensive, cereal is slightly more here than back at home, but if you stick with the store brand it's a lot better. The general spices and oils that are usually expensive back home are pretty cheap here. The exception being rice. For some reason a bag of rice is a lot more expensive then I had expected. But it might just be that I have forgotten how much an entire bag of rice can make.

There are fruit vendors that you can buy cheap fruit from, I love getting tangerines. Depending on where I go, I can get between 5-8 of them for about ₩2,000. Eggs are also a good deal to get on the street. I bought this entire thing of eggs (36) for ₩5,600 (which is about $4.75). I didn't really want that many eggs, but I don't know how to count in Korean yet, or how to say dozen, so I just bought the lot. When I'm buying something on the street or in a market, even if I can't understand how much they are telling me, I can be fairly sure that it wont be too expensive.

There are a lot of little bakeries around here, the most popular are Paris Baguette and Tous Les Jours. They usually have a variety of sweet and savory pastries to choose from, and lots and lots of cakes. Both of these places are right outside my work, so if I want to stop in and get breakfast, I can usually get a bagel and a pastry and a small orange juice for about ₩3,500 which is pretty cheap, but it's the kind of stuff that will add up. There is also a cheap place to get lunch by work, I haven't been there yet, but Grace who is the new receptionist, told me that if I ever want her to show me new foods then she would be happy too. I'm definitely going to hit that up. So far I love Korean food!

Taxis can be pretty cheap as well. Last night we took a 20-30 minute taxi home, and it was only ₩20,000 ( a lot cheaper than New York!!). Of course the public transportation is way cheaper, only about ₩600 per bus or subway ride, but they stop running at midnight (slightly inconvenient for the party goers).

While the cheap stuff is cheap, the expensive stuff is expensive. Dishes, pots & pans, silverware, this stuff can all run pretty high. Luckily though you can go to a Daiso to get most of the stuff you need for your home and it's pretty cheap. Bed sheets, now those are expensive. Since Korean don't sleep on beds, there isn't much need for bed sheets, which means they are super expensive. One fitted sheet runs between ₩40,000 and ₩60,000. The sheets that came with my bed are orange and ugly, but I'm not about to spend $30-$50 on bed sheets!

Is it possible for cats to have ADHD? What about Schizophrenia? We if they can, I think Dexter definitely has at least one of those. That can is crazy. He's constantly running around, attacking my limbs, eating my chords, attacking my clothes. He even tries to jump and attack my face when I'm trying to go to sleep! I have to hide all my appendages under the covers and have my head face the wall in order to escape him! He doesn't listen to anything I say. Ever. I even tried yelling at him in Korean, and that didn't work either. I can't even pet him without him thinking I'm trying to play and have him attack my hand (same goes when I'm typing on the computer. I can see him eying me right now) He usually goes crazy for an hour or two, then konks out and takes a nap, which he looks like he's about to do. Op, nope, he went for the hand. This cat is a little bastard. I'm trying something new today though. The trusty squirt bottle of water. I feel bad doing it, but everything i've read says it's the best way to train your cat, and it doesn't hurt them. But he looks so frightened when I do it. I feel bad. But then he tries to eat my toes, so I nut up and let him have it. Hopefully he learns quickly, before my patience with him runs out.

Here's a video of the little bundle of joy. He doesn't actually appear until about 30 seconds in

This morning Megan and I were set to go shopping at a fabric store in Dongdaemun. on the way out of the building though, we found an adorable little kitten! It was clearly a stray, and stray cats are not treated very nicely here. People often throw rocks at them! So we decided to take him in. Originally Megan was going to take him. But she decided she wasn't ready for a cat. So who jumped to the task? Me! I decided to name him Dexter (hopefully he wont turn into a vigilante serial killer though), and he is just the cutest little thing. I know it's going to be hard to raise a kitten, but I couldn't just leave him to fend for himself! So we brought him up to my apartment, gave him some cereal and water, and we put him in the bathroom while we went shopping.

Dongdaemun is a great place, we went to the giant fabric store there. I was hoping to find a sewing machine, but no luck. I did however find material to make my Halloween costume (Halloween is rarely celebrated here, so it was difficult to find costumes) and I got some yarn to make scarves with. Then we had a look around the town. I tried to find some postcards, but this country isn't very big on them. So if you haven't gotten one yet, it's not because I don't like you!

On the way back we stopped at the Veterinarians by our apartment and told him that we found a stary kitten. We got him some hard and soft food, a food dish, and some flea medicine. I have to take them a fecal sample (yum!) to test for parasites, and then after a week I can take him in to get vaccinated. We also found a little box, but no litter. As I said before, people don't like cats too much, so their supplies are few in number. But I know there is a pet store around here, so I can check that out. I came back and gave him the wet cat food, which he basically inhaled, and he has been spending the rest of the afternoon chasing my feet, attacking my hand, and rummaging through my underwear drawer.

I also figured out how to write his name in Hangul, it's 덱스터 just fyi.

I'm going to have to Dexter-proof my apartment, which I have already learned means to close off the area behind the fridge, remove all plastic from his reach, shuffle my feet instead of picking them up when I walk, removing all biteable cords, and keeping my feet on the bed and not the ground.

This is going to be great!!!

I'm going to warn you, this post is a little intense, and please don't freak out and think that I would ever do something this idiotic.


After work on Friday night a bunch of us decided to go out for Galbi, so I met up with Megan, Alex (guy) and Alex (girl) and we caught a taxi to the restaurant because it was raining. We got out of the taxi, and all three of them had been drinking a little, not a lot, but I'm sure they were buzzed. We spotted two of our other friend behind us, and i decided to wait. Alex and Alex decided to cross the road though. An 8 lane road. An 8 lane road without a cross walk. I was all about not doing that. So they started to dart across because all the traffic was stopped at a red light. I turned to see Ruth and Walker approaching, and I heard a huge *thump*. Alex (girl) in the heat of running across the stopped lanes, forgot to look in the express bus lane, and she got hit full on by a bus! Alex (guy) was about 5 steps behind her, and it just grazed him luckily.

The bus stopped and Alex (guy) helped get Alex (girl) up to the side walk. She was clearly in shock, and she was tlaking about how she was fine, and she didn't really realize what had happened. So the bus driver called the police, and Alex (girl) was taken into a restaurant on the corner into the bathroom. The police came and were talking to Alex (guy) but it was hard because they didn't speak English very well. The bus driver was there, and they were all yelling (or maybe just scared, I hear Korean is a very emphatic language). Alex (girl) eventually came back down stairs, and the paramedics came. She said she didn't want to go and that she was fine, but we didn't really give her that option, she had to go. So Megan went with her, and the rest of us waited for one of the Korean supervisors from work to come to help us translate. Two of them showed up, Chris and Charlene. Alex (guy) had to go to the police station with Charlene, and the rest of us went to the hospital where Alex (girl) was with Chris.

She had to get x-rays taken, and apparently she refused to get a CT Scan, because it was expensive. I thought that was pretty stupid though, since she got hit by a freaking bus and she might have a concussion. It turns out she broke her clavicle in two places, and shattered part of it as well. They put her in a brace to align the bones back up, and she will have to go back for more x-rays on Monday, and there's the possibility that she might have to have surgery if the pieces don't line up right.

And after she got her medication, she had to go to the police station to give a statement, which none of us wanted to happen because her initial pain medication was starting to wear off. But the police said she had to. So I gave her my jacket because she wasn't able to pull her original one on, and the rest of us left. It wound up being 3 hours since the accident happened, and since all of us were on the way to dinner, we were starving. We wound up going to the restaurant that we originally planned on going to. Upside of the night, the food was great. After dinner though, it started monsooning, and I didn't have a jacket since I gave mine to Alex (girl). It took forever to get a taxi.

Alex made it home safe with Charlene, and Megan told me today that she's doing fine.