Remember when I worked at that hagwon in Seoul, and I was always stressed out, and doing work outside of school, and angry, and miserable because my boss was a see-you-next-tuesday? Well, my friend, those days are over, for I have moved to Jinju and started working in a public school!

I work at a middle school in Munsan (well, technically two middle schools), and there are 3 grades in the school. With the 1st and 2nd grades, there are 2 classes for each grade. With the 3rd graders, there are 3 classes. So that's a total of 7 classes in the whole school. I teach them each two times a week, Monday through Thursday. I usually have 3 or 4 classes a day. That's it. I teach about 3 or 4 hours total a day. Can you believe it? Classes are 45 minutes each. Each class has between 23-28 students, I can't remember the exact count.

I started working last Thursday, but I only had 2 classes, and on Friday I got the day off to move my stuff. So technically this was my first real week, even though I didn't teach much.The 1st and 2nd graders are having tests, so they have no class, and there were no classes in the afternoon. I taught maybe 4 classes the whole week. It's also close to winter break, so I don't even teach a book until the new term in February. The students are all really friendly, everyone says hi to me, and kids come to my classroom even if they don't have me yet. The classroom gets a little noisy sometimes, but my co-teacher, Mrs. Che, is in the room the whole time to keep them in line and help explain things to them in Korean. One thing that I found helps get them to do their work in class is to threaten to give them homework if they don't finish. They live in the country, so their English levels are different. A lot of the girls speak pretty well. I've only taught the 3rd graders though, since the others were having tests this week.

On Fridays I go to a different school in Geumgok, that school has a total of 31 students, in the whole school. There's one class for each grade, and the class size is 9-12. These students are really great, they are super friendly and active in the classroom. I teach them each once a day, plus two afternoon classes. The afternoon classes I teach without the co-teacher, and all we do is play games! My co-teacher at that school, Mrs. Gwon, is extremely friendly, and she speaks English very well.

At both of the schools I have my my own desk and computer which is nice. In Munsan I have my own classroom and the kids come there, but in Geumgok I go to the different classes. They are both pretty rural, but the schools are up to date. There is a huge TV screen in each room connected to the computer, plus the one in Munsan is touch screen.

The kids seem to like me a lot, I've been trying to do fun activities with them to keep them entertained in class. But I am really happy at these schools, I have so much free time during the day to work on my material, and the teachers and students area great. I really lucked out!

As usual, I apologize for not posting in such a long time. It's been a little hectic. I finished up my contract at LCI at the end of October. I kind of wanted to stay on, because I love my kids so much, but the director wasn't willing to give me an extra week's vacation at Christmas time (even though she gave it to other people!) so I didn't really want to stay with her and her shady business practices.

We had a great time at school for Halloween, but leaving my kids was hard. I cried a lot. I wrote a nice letter to all the parents, about how much their kids have improved, and how much I love them. I hope we get to keep in touch. Alyssa said that her and Alice are going to come visit me in Jinju, that would be great! I had a hard time saying goodbye to all the Korean staff too, especially Colleen, Alyssa's mom.

I was pretty pissed when we were moving. There was a new couple taking our apartment, so we were told we had to be out by 9am on Saturday! With no extra time except for after school to pack. I was also told that there would be a cleaning service coming in, so of course, I didn't take my time cleaning the place. I was pissed about having to leave so soon, and I wasn't about to waste my time doing something that other people were going to be paid for. I found out later though, that the cleaning people never came! So the new couple had to move it to our apartment when it was a mess. If I was them I would be furious.

Daniel got a job in Jinju, which is where he worked when he first came to Korea. He couldn't find a job closer to Seoul, so he decided to take the one down there. I was a little stressed because that meant I would either have to find a job in Jinju, or I would only see him on weekends. luckily after some hard work I got a job at a public school in Jinju. I almost blew my chance because I typed of my essay so fast, and there were some grammar mistakes on it. BUT wouldn't you just know it, my interviewer when to school at PSU and he used to go to Hillsboro on the weekends for fun. Sooo he gave me extra points because I was from Hillsboro. Also, he didn't want to see me and Daniel separated, so taht was another reason he wanted to hire me.

So now I am off work for a month. I'm staying at my friend Lindsay's, who lives in the same apartment area as where I used to live. I don't have much to do all day. Lindsay taught me how to knit, so I made a tea cozy and I'm working on two scarves. We also went and got jewelry making supplies, so I've been making jewelry. I was worried about having Dexter here, but he's really behaving himself. He literally sleeps all day, and wakes up when Lindsay comes home. We've been having a good time together, we bought a big pumpkin and made different types of pumpkin soup, and usually we just knit together and play with Dexter and watch TV when she comes home. I try to tidy up the house or make dinner for her while she's gone. We are basically like husband and wife.

Daniel is down in Jinju already, he started his job at the beginning of November. He seems to like ti so far. I would like to make time to go see him this month, hopefully that can happen. I'm going to try to get my new apartment a little early, so I can ship all my boxes down there before I move. It will be a pain if I have to come back up to Seoul to ship all my stuff.

This past week was a Korean holiday called Chuseok. It's kind of like Thanksgiving for Koreans, but it's a lot more family related,and there is a lot of prayer to ancestors. The best part is that it's a three-day holiday right in the middle of the week. The school decided to give us the Friday off as well. We all wished we had gotten the Monday as well, then we could have had 8 days to travel, but no dice. I decided to go to Thailand for the vacation because I'm getting a little sick of Korea right now. Plus my friend Tim from university lives there with his Thai boyfriend, so that meant no hotel costs!

I flew out of Seoul on Tuesday morning, I went to the airport with Alex and her mom (who were going to China). I actually flew through China, and I really hated their airport. The souvenir places would take my credit card, but not the food place, and neither would the ONE place that was selling water. I got into Thailand late, but Tim was there to meet me! We went straight to his place and then went and got food. Thailand is a pretty cheap place, especially if you know your way around. Being a foreigner, Tim said prices might be high for me, but I had him and Nate to help me out.

The next day I adventured out on my own. I had to take a bus, a sky train, and a riverboat to get to downtown Bangkok, but it was only like 30 minutes. I started out near Chinatown and went to a really big flower market. Flowers are big in Thailand because they are used for prayer. The market was huge, and wet. Oh and I forgot to say, the temperature in Bangkok was ridiculous, I was pretty much sweating my ass off for the whole day. Anyway, I walked past the flower market and wanted to go to the Museum of Siam. Apparently I looked lost because a very friendly Thai person came up to me and gave me good directions of some places to see, and then he put me in a tuktuk (a little motorized, open car). the driver took me around Bangkok for two hours for only 40 Baht (about $1.30). First I went to the Lucky Buddha, where I ran into another very friendly Thai who was telling me about the temple. A lot of the temples restrict pictures, so I couldn't take any of that place. Then I went on to Wat Benchamabophit. This was my first big temple that I had seen, and let me tell you, it was impressive. Everything was ornately designed, with lots of detail and gold embellishments. I can't even begin to understand how an ancient culture can make something so amazing without the technological advancements that present society has. It was really mind blowing. And it's not just the one temple, all the temples in Bangkok are like that. And they are all right in the middle of the city too.

After that I decided to go back downtown to the Grand Palace. I didn't actually go in because one, it was expensive, and two, they require that you wear long pants, close-toed shoes, and your shoulders must be covered. The thought of doing that in that heat almost made me pass out, so I decided against it. Instead I walked around for a while, I found a really cool amulet market where I bought a few things that I have absolutely no understanding of. Then some more walking,
I made it to the foreigner section and got some lunch. I wanted to try street food, but I didn't know what anything was, so I decided to wait for the next day when I went out with Nate. This place had a lot of souvenirs, and people selling stuff. One guy tried to sell me a night with a Thai boyfriend, only $10! I tried to find this curry market i read about, but to no avail. For the whole day, I drank four giant bottles of water (which, by the way, were only 20 cents each) and I only peed once! That's how much I was sweating. I eventually made it back to Tim's for a well needed shower.

Then, once Nate came back we headed out for my bachelorette party! I don't want to go into the details, but it involved alcohol, Mexican food, and a strip club.

The next day I had Nate all to myself. We started out with a  breakfast of green curry and begin our day at Wat Arun, which again I couldn't get into because I wasn't wearing appropriate attire. But it was fine, seeing it from the outside was still great. Wat Aurn is a really old stone temple, which again has great detail. I ran into a group of Koreans, and had a little convo with them, that was fun.

After Wat Arun, we went to Wat Pho, which is home to the Reclining Buddha. Again, housed in a huge, ornate palace, the Reclining Buddha was huge. Luckily, I was able to get in because they gave out ugly, over-sized shirt to wear for us people in tank tops. the Buddha is a 50-meter long, gold plated statue or immense proportion. We walked around the temple for a little while longer, it was a big maze of buildings and entry ways, and gold and Buddhas. After that we walked around the riverside, basically where I was the day before. We got some street food which was pretty spicy, and then to another temple called Wat Bowonniwet. More gold, more Buddhas, but this one had a great carving of Buddha's foot print (which I think is important), and withing the etched lines, people had balanced coins for good luck. A monk came up and talked to use for a little bit about it which was cool. We tried to find the curry market again, but we still couldn't find it.

We soon went back to Tim's house, and then set out for Ko Samet. We drove for a long time to a beach area where we got hooked up at a hotel for high ranking naval officers. Nate is in the navy, and it boss really likes him, so he made a reservation for us. The next morning we headed to the pier to go to Ko Samet (an island about 200km outside Bangkok). We had to wait for a while to get the boat, and the pier was really sketch. I've got this fear about walking over things that I can see through, especially when I see water underneath, especially when I'm carrying heavy suitcases. Anyway, the boat took about 45 minutes and cost 100 baht ( a little over 3 bucks) and our room was literally two feet away from the water. We got settles at about 1 o'clock and went straight for the beach. Nate and I got some food at the little place right by the room. Then I rented a chair (100 baht for the whole day) and camped out. I went in the water which was amazingly warm, it felt great. For a while we had to stay away because I member of the royal family was coming ashore. Oh, and I forgot to mention, in Thailand, there are just tons of stray dogs and cats, just chilling, walking around, causing no problem. I loved it. There were also a ton on the beach. How great would that be, to be a stray dog living on an island, hanging out on the beach, getting food from people all day. i was pretty jealous of the dogs. Anyway, back to the beach, it was great. There weren't a ton of people, just a big group of speedo-clad Russians. So we were on the beach for a while, then explored the in-land area. When night came along we wandered down the beach to this outside restaurant where we sat on mats on the sand. We got a HUGE meal, two meat skewers, two cobs or corn, spring rolls, ribs, noodles, two alcohol buckets, and a hookah, all for $45. Plus, there was a fire show! A bunch of fit Thai guys throwing sticks of fire into the air, pretty bad ass. We stayed there for a few hours, watched the fire show and partook in some on-stage dancing. After a while though I was pretty tired so I went to bed.

The next day was another day or fun in the sun. Tim got some pretty awkward sun burns on his leg, his belly button, and hear his speedo line. We stayed there until about 3 pm and then took the ferry back. I had to be at the airport by 10am the next morning, so we had to leave the night before in order to get there. At the pier on the way back I tried some strange fruit and got a few presents for my kids at school. We then drove to Bang Saen to stay for the night. This was another place on the beach. We got a pretty decent room for 500 Baht ($16) with two beds. After a well needed shower we went to get some food. Again, great meal for cheap. We got crab legs, a spicy mussel salad, and a sour-spicy fish soup, all for about $13. And of course there was an adorable cat who I had no problem giving my fish bones to. After the filling meal, we went to get a Thai massage, something I had been waiting for for days. Tim and I went together, and we got a full hour for only 250 Baht ($8). Nate told them to go easy on us because we were sunburned, but usually it's a bit rougher. It felt great though. And Tim was talking to them in Thai which was fun. On the way back to the hotel we stopped and got some more weird Thai fruit, it was all decent tasting, nothing spectacular though. The night sucked, because I swear the beds were made out of straight concrete, and in the middle of the night it felt like little concrete midgets were punching me all over my back.

We got up the next morning to go to the airport, and we stopped by a cool looking Chinese temple in Bang Saen, again I couldn't take pictures inside, but the outside was pretty fascinating. After another hour in the car we got to the airport, early, I had to wait for the ticket counter to open. I brought about $250 dollars with me, and i actually had a hard time spending it all. Even with the travel, paying for the hotels, food, souvenirs, gas, I still had about 1,500 Baht to spend at the airport. So i did my last bit of souvenir shopping, got things for my kids' parents, something for my grandma, and a shot glass for my collection. I never figured out what to get for Daniel, so I got him a bottle of Jack form the duty free shop (he loved it). I must say, it was only five days, but I missed him terribly. It was kinda annoying seeing all the cute couple on the island, and not being one of them. I was happy to finally get back (which didn't happen until 1am Monday morning because my freaking plane was delayed in China and I missed my last bus).

All in all, it was a pretty great trip. The weather was hot, but the goods were cheap and the food was great. The stray animals brought my heart up, but I missed my boo. It was great seeing Tim, and I had a fun bachelorette party. In the end though, I was ready to go home. I am definitely going back though!

You can see all my pictures here in my Facebook album!

So in case you live under a rock and haven't heard the news, Daniel and I are engaged! It wasn't really a surprise to me, we had been talking about it before he went away to Nigeria. I told him that I was ready though. He's been back for almost a month now, and we were talking about it over dinner the other night and we decided that we both wanted to go through with it. I told him though, that I required a ring and a proper proposal. The next day he left to do some business in Ansan. I didn't really know when he was going to propose, but I was certainly hoping he wouldn't wait too long! I didn't want to tell anyone until I had a pretty ring to show off, lol. So come Tuesday night, I came home and vented about the student who spilled coffee all over my desk, and how the Speech Contest was a waste of time. Then as we were sitting on the couch he said "Ok are you ready? Close your eyes." Haha obviously I knew what he was going to do, so it wasn't like a surprise proposal, but it was special none the less. And there we have it, he asked and I said yes.

We talked about what we are going to do, and neither of us really wants to go through the hassle of having a ceremony in Korea. So we decided instead to make it official at the Nigerian and US Embassies, and with the Korean government, and instead of a ceremony, we are going to have a celebration party afterward. We are going to start saving up money, so that when we move back to America in a year or so, we can have a legit ceremony in the states (Oregon, most likely). We are also going to go to Nigeria and have a celebration. Daniel wants to go for Nigerian Thanksgiving, so it will be a joint Thanksgiving-Wedding party. He says that in Nigerian society, the family pretty much pays for everything, so we wont need to save for that. Plus it's not going to be a legit wedding, just more like a party.

I think we are going to try to go to the embassies soon. He has to go back to Nigeria at the end of October, and he needs to reapply for his American tourist visa for Christmas, so we want to go soon. Plus, I figure, the only point of getting engaged is to give yourself time to plan the wedding, so if you're not having a wedding, there's no point in staying engaged for a long time. You need to just jump right in! I will be sure to keep everyone updated on when exactly we are going to go to the embassies, so don't worry.

I realized recently that I have been posting a lot of things about my life, and what I do on my free time. That's all fine and great, but when it comes to what I cam here to do I'm always leaving stuff out! I am a teacher after all. I mean, I'm not a full blown, spent five years in college, got a degree, licensed teacher. But I am educating children, so I consider myself to be one, and will put it on future resumes.

When I first came here, my class couldn't speak a word of English. Okay, maybe a few words, like "teacher" and "bathroom." Well, Thomas couldn't say bathroom, he would just say 시 (or, "pee" in Korean). My class had to start pretty much fresh, going from the alphabet, to small words, to simple sentences. I've been with them for 10 months now, and they have improved such a tremendous amount. I'll try to give you an idea of what class was like for the first four months. There was a lot of speaking Korean, even though it's kinda forbidden in the school, they were young and couldn't speak English if they tried. I got different kids starting at different months throughout the year, so after we finished a lot of the alphabet, Thomas and Daniel came in, so they were a little behind everyone. Elliot would barely even speak, and would slouch away if you tried to touch him. They could barely read any words, not even "the" or "and." We had a phonics book that would use words like "cut" and "tap" but they had no concept of rhyming words, or that rhyming words often had the same spelling. Every day I would point to the word "mop" and only a few of them could recognize it. It took most of them a month to learn how to spell their names.

And it wasn't like I was just teaching them English, they were so young they didn't even know how to write numbers properly, or deal with other students, or themselves for that matter. I've been having to teach them life survival skills as well. I've been teaching them not to cry in class, that they need to ask for help when they need it, not hit each other, not to freak out when something doesn't go right, some of them still can't write numbers properly. I've taught them the importance of sharing, and helping your friends with their work sometimes. For a long time, the girls would finish their work and would have to help the boys. I mean, the boys handwriting is still pretty bad, and nothing seems to help, but at least I can read it.

But they've come a long way since then. All of them can read pretty well (with the exception of Thomas, who can barely read "the" and "or"). We have book, and every Thursday they have to read a page that has about 15-20 lines, things like "Look at all the toys, they are on the floor. The blue ball is on the floor, the fast car is on the floor. Let's clean up the room, it is messy." So it's not the most advanced stuff, but I think it's pretty impressive. I probably couldn't read that when I was five. Side note, I recently saw a report that says that kids who learn a second language by the age of five are statistically smarter than students who didn't. Interesting little fact, no?

Anyway, my kids and I can have a pretty good conversation, they can tell me what they did over the weekend, what they had for breakfast, where they went on summer vacation, if there is a problem in class, if someone gets hurt the other students can explain why. Every once and a while they don't know a word in English, so another student will explain it, or I will look it up in the Korean dictionary, and try to explain it to them. I attempted to explain the word "born" to them, because Elliot was born in China, but they didn't understand. I was like "Ok, when you're mommy has a baby in her stomach, and then the baby comes out, and she can hold it, that's being born" but that concept still is a little too advanced for them.

We have started learning small bits of grammar as well, such as plural and singular, countable and uncountable, verb conjugations for "he, she, it" forms. They are too young for me to explain why we do things a certain way, so instead I'm just trying to ingrain in their tiny little brains to do things a certain way. Sometimes things just don't stick though. We just finished learning about the days of the weeks, the months, seasons, and "first, second, third...etc." Some of them understand pretty well, we have calendars on the walls, and I wrote the number of them month on them. And I've told them about 50 billion times that there are 12 months in the year, and it says "12" on the December calendar. But when I say "true or false: there are 7 months in the year" some of them still shout out true. It can be exasperating sometimes because I'm only given so much time to teach certain things. We just learned months, but unless we have time int he class to review, we won't really talk about that again. So I try to go over things enough so that it sticks, but sometimes, with some students, it just doesn't.

I have high hopes for them though, they have advanced a lot since they first got here, and I think they will keep up a pretty steady pce for the rest of their time here.

What a fun weekend I have had! First, on Friday, we had a pajama party at school, so all the kids came with their pajamas and teddy bears and blankets. We had a little snack party in the classroom for a half an hour, then I read them a few stories in a little makeshift tent the Korean staff put together. After that it was just sort of a free for all. We let the kids go to different rooms, they could watch a movie in the library with Jeff, or play games with Lindsay, or get their nails done in my class. of course all the girls wanted to be in my class, and a few boys! I probably painted about 20 girls/guys fingernails in that time. It was fun, but I started to get a massive headache which wound up lasting the rest of the day and night. Because I wasn't feeling well I decided to spend the night in.

The next morning, Alex, Megan and I went down to Hongik University to go to their Free Market. We got Mexican food before hand at Dos Tacos and the burritos were bigger than our heads! The market was really cool, it's nestled in a little park right near the entrance of Hongik University. There were a bunch of stalls with handmade jewelry on the street, then when you go into the park there were a bunch of vendors selling things like paintings, handmade leather goods, handmade notebooks, key chains, shirts, bags. There was so much stuff we had to circle around a few times to make sure we saw everything. And it was boiling hot outside, even in the shade we were sweating hard core. Nothing in America can prepare you for the humidity of the East. I wound up getting a few things, a cool tree painting that was also a clock, a notebook, and a few necklaces. Then on the way back through Hongdae, we decided to get piercings! We passed a shop with a bunch of Korean biker guys outside and we decided to go in. We ask how much, and it was only $10 which was cool. So I got my upper ear, Megan got her third holes on her lobes, and Alex got her nose.

We headed off to Korean class after that. I'm really excited because my teacher says that I should move on to Level 3 in September. I'm excited and nervous, because that class it taught in only Korean. My reading comprehension is pretty good, and my vocab, but my listening and reading out loud isn't too great. I can make small conversations, and try to piece things together, but listening to Koreans talk is hard!

After class we decided to go to Itaewon. We went to a cool little restaurant in Noksapyeong called Berlin, where we all got some drinks. I got a Frozen Key Lime, and it tastes exactly like key lime pie, it was great! We also got a few appetizers to stave off our hunger. Then Daniel and Lindsay met up with us for a while. After Daniel left we went back to Itaewon to a nice little Indian restaurant where we got to sit outside and eat. Drinks weren't good, but the Chicken Tikka Masala and the garlic Naan were. Next we went to a cool spot called the Bungalow. This place has this wooden swings to sit in, and the floor is covered in sand. It was like being on a tropical island. We met up with Ruth and Walker, along with Frank and Miguel. Here the drinks were good, I got something called a Cassis Frappe, and it is now my drink of choice. We stayed at the Bungalow for maybe an hour, then we all parted ways. Lindsay, Megan, Alex and I decided to hit up Ladies Night at The Loft (which is kinda a shady place, but the music is good and girls drink for free, so ti has it's perks). We met up with Daniel and some of his friends, we had some drinks and danced for a while. We left to go find Miguel up on the hill, but he was no where to be found, which was quite aggravating. By then Megan was pretty drunk, and Lindsay and Alex were tired, so they all went home and I went back to hang out with Daniel. We left sometime around 1 o'clock. It was a pretty fun night, went to a lot of places, had some good food.

And this morning I woke up and guess what I did! I bought a ticket to go visit Tim in Thailand! I'm so excited! I have a vacation for Chuseok, which is like the Korean Thanksgiving. So I'll be leaving on Tuesday morning, and coming back Sunday night. It took me a while to find a good ticket, because most of them were either really expensive, or the timing was bad. But I found one this morning, and after a little trouble with the credit card company I was finally able to book it.