the sprout

Aaron took this photo a couple days ago of me, holding a tiny sprout in my hand. I love all the meanings that can be derived by it and what they mean for my life...

Yeongdo Meet Up!

About a week ago, Aaron, Meagan and I were talking about how we should find a way to get all the Yeongdo English teachers together for dinner... We knew there were other foreigners on the island, but just didn't know who!  So, on Monday, I sent out a post on the Facebook "English Teacher's in Korea" page inviting anyone who lived on Yeongdo to dinner at the Samgyupsal place under my apartment!   I wasn't all that worried if no one showed bu the 3 of us, but we were all hoping at least a couple people would turn out!  

Fortunately, we had 9 people come, 6 of which I had never met, or even seen on the island!  

We all had such a great time getting to know each other and sharing stories about our lives back home (America, Canada, and Puerto Rico) and in Korea!  We're planning to get together again for grilled clams in some BBQ tents on one of the beaches on the island!  Cheers to living on Yeong-do!

Date night, Italian style!

 What girl doesn't love a text saying, "Do you wanna have dinner together after our workouts tonight?"  I do! I'm a huge sucker for date nights!  Aaron and I have been together so long now, and spend so much time together, that it seems we don't really need to go on dates to "reconnect" or "re-ignite the flame", so to say... but, he takes me out anyway, and I love it!   Last night we went to Amant, a new Italian/Asian place that just opened in Nampodong!  It was on my blog about restaurants I wanted to check out before leaving Busan!

The food was to die for!  It was so good, I actually found the manager to tell him just how much I loved it!  Everyone loves a compliment, right?!

Any time you can see directly into the kitchen of a place, you know you're getting good quality food!  That's the truth for this place!  Not only was the food amazing, the atmosphere was romantic, classy, and just plain comfortable.  We sat for a couple hours, just chatting away...

 

... and feasting on this steak and pepper Asian/Italian fusion spaghetti, caesar salad, bruschetta, gorgonzola pizza (YES PLEASE!) and a fresh limeaid slushy! 

After dinner, we took a stroll through the shops in Nampodong and enjoyed the cool weather!  This season, minus the stickiness from the rain, is fantastic!

I stopped to snap a picture of Aaron, and an old drunk Korean man excitedly stumbled over to me, with his equally drunk and excited girlfriend, snatched my camera and shewed me over towards Aaron so he could take our picture!  It turned out pretty good for having a drunk photographer behind the lens! :)

Aaron, thank you for loving, respecting, and caring for me! I love you... and love our life together in Korea!  I wouldn't have it any other way!

Headin' to kindergarten!

Every morning, I wave good morning to this kindergarten student who rides his bike (all alone) with cute little training wheels, in the middle of the street, all the way to his school!  Cars constantly swerve around him as he wobbles on his rickety little bike.  

Serious, where are his parents?  

Crafty hands!

I've been told I have "crafty hands," which is a complement as far as I'm concerned!  I've always loved making jewelry, sitting for hours-stringing popcorn for christmas tree garland, hand cutting tiny pieces of paper to make personalized greeting cards, decorating cakes, meticulously hand sewing entire homes worth of bedding, pillows, and curtains, and more recenrly, decorating my english classroom!  And by "more recently," I mean, "today!" 

I came to work this morning and found out I didn't have any classes due to test prep!  Ssoooo, I put my "crafty hands" to work to decorate a couple walls that needed a change of scenery!  Monica had commented a couple times about how she wished she was creative enough to come up with a way to change them!  

So, I considered it my little gift to her, since it is technically her classroom afterall! :)  

I went next door to the teachers resource room and collected some paper and felt and got to work!  I made this wall first!  These are random questions we ask our students on almost a daily basis during the lessons.  Some of them STILL can't remember what they mean, so these are for them!  No excuses now kiddos!

This one took about 4 hours because I had to write the Korean sentences over and over again to get the spaces and the characters just right...  The title took 5 minutes... butterflies took 10 mins... flowers 5 mins... and the rest was salvaged from the last board! :)  Good news was, when this one was finished, the kids came in for class and were reading all the sentences and crowding around the board!  I love their enthusiasm!

I had 4 sentences left and no room to put them, so I stuck them on the adjacent wall... but they were lonely all by themselves, so I added some balloons with the names of colors!  Aaron said this was his favorite!  Who doesn't love a wall of balloons, right?!  It took about 10 minutes to make and hang the balloons.  Luckily I had some twine from DAISO in my drawer that worked perfectly for the ribbon! 

Piece of cake!

By this time, I was on a roll and wasn't ready to stop!  So, I decided to re-do the other huge wall in the back of the classroom!  I thought a big tree would be cool, which I could make into a family tree lesson wall!  Luckily there were huge sheets of green and brown felt to make the tree, so I got to cutting!  All in all, this one took about 4 hours!   Luckily the street and house scene at the bottom were salvaged too!  I love the way it turned out!

Can't wait to come to work tomorrow and enjoy my new decor!  

It's all in a days work for this girl and her crafty hands!