Black Belt

I've seen my fair share of elementary student Taekwondo shows living in Korea, but I've never seen a black belt performance, until Saturday! After dinner with 4 of my girlfriends, we walked the street along Gwangali Beach and stumbled upon a FREE Taekwondo show in the street! There were about 15 black belt university students (guys and girls) performing in front of about 200 passerby's. I felt like I couldn't lift my jaw off the floor! They were doing some pretty amazing things, like blind folded back flips while kicking an apple with their foot! I didn't even know that was possible, to burst an apple into pieces, without throwing it! Leave it to these kids! Enjoy the video of some of the highlights!  

Sorry it's sideways! I should know better... but i completely forgot when I was recording it! And the sound is terrible because I had to use a program to combine the videos and it ruined the sound. You get the picture. Enjoy, regardless! :)

Casino Night!

Last night, our friend's Adam and Ashley invited me and A to come with them on a lil' double date to the Casino on the 2nd floor of Lotte Hotel in Seomyeon.  I love this, considering we introduced them to the casino about a month ago and now they're hooked and inviting us to come!  We all decided to dress up and make it a fancy night, which gave me an excuse to wear my new MANGO dress that was 70% off!  Ahhh, yes!  $25 is much better than $100... and it also gave us an excuse to take a taxi there, instead of a bus or the subway.  (instagram photo)

We spent 4 hours together, playing at the roulette table, laughing, betting, cheering, and whining when we would lose our chips. Taking pictures is a SERIOUS NO NO inside the casino, so I had to secretly snap this one, with my iphone, from the dining room of the casino, where we ate FREE dinner. :)

Ash and I

Aaron didn't get the memo that we weren't showing that we were losers yet for this picture!

... but it's true, we all lost. :(  It's never fun to lose money, but that's kind of the chance you take when you walk through those doors!  Luckily, I only played with $45.00, and only lost $30, so it wasn't all that bad considering I played a game for 4 hours, and ordered whatever I wanted to drink for free, and had free dinner!  Gotta love the casino! 

Love it more when we're all winners, but whatever!  

As a side note, Ashley won $900 last time!  So, the little money she lost tonight was a wash!  Lucky girl!

Thanks for another great night together you three!

Fifth Grade Friday!

There's no better weekday morning to wake up than Friday!  Not just because it's the last day of the work week, but because I LOVE Friday's at my job!  I teach (3) 5th grade classes (which happen to be the SMARTEST and most well BEHAVED group of kids I've ever taught in Korea) and that's it... Just three classes!  Since the huge elementary government test was yesterday, I decided to let my classes do something a little less strenuous and intense this morning... Their little minds need a break sometimes!  I debated throwing on a movie, but I feel like such a slacker when I resort to movies, so... I made a writing/drawing/coloring assignment that went with this month's lesson and let them take the full 40 minutes to complete it.  Easy for me, fun for them!  I wasn't planning to snap pictures, but it was such a mellow, rainy day, and I realized I won't be in Korea forever and wanted to remember days like these...  So, there you go.  

Welcome to my 5th grade English class.

Molly and Ji-ji... BEST FRIENDS!  

My lovely co-teacher, Loola, who was enjoying today just as much as I was!

 I have (60) 5th graders, so I chose the top 30 papers and taped them to the archway in our classroom.  Koreans are uber competitive, so I knew this would push them to work harder and harder in my class! Heck, if their papers can be chosen to be posted on the wall, they'll study English during all their free time!

I've got quite a few lil artists at my school.

Teaching English can have it's bad, boring, and frustrating days, but days like this make it all worth it!

Happy Friday from the other side of the world.

Invitations Revealed!

There are quite a few perks to having a small, intimate wedding, in my opinion... Other than the obvious reason of being able to spend quality time with the people you know and love the most, instead of schmoozing with people you only sorta kinda know, and being too busy to notice all of the details of the day, or not being able to spend quality moments together with your new hubby!  Ugggh, shame!  But, one of my favorite parts about having a smaller, more intimate wedding are things like being able to make personal touches... because hand making 65 wedding invitations is a whole lot easier than hand making 250!  

Can I get an AMEN?!

Lucky for me, my guest list capped out at 63, most of whom are couples or families, which left me with the attainable goal of hand making 36 invitations!  Easy, peasy, right?!  Well, do you know how hard it is to do any sort of projects with a cat who constantly wants to help?  I'm sure all you moms with toddlers get where I'm coming from!

This left me with one option, to make all 36 invitation during my afternoon free time at work.  Lucky for me, this is my 4th year teaching in Korea, so I don't need all afternoon to plan for classes!  Oh yes!  I'm not sure how many days, or hours it took to make these little treasures, but I'd do it all over again if I had to! (Well, not for a couple years though!)  I'm such a sucker for hand made wedding invitations!

    

I love their fun, flirty, colorful, and personal feel, and hope that our big day is all those things!

Crack The Code

This year, I took on an extra class of 1st and 2nd graders who didn't know a lick of English!  I knew I was crazy to take it on, but getting paid $100 a week for teaching an hour and 40 minutes was just too good to pass up.  I remember the first day of class, when they all came in and looked at me like I was a crazy lady, mumbling things that didn't make any sense to them! One by one, they would get up from their desk and start walking around the classroom while I followed after them redirecting them back to their desk! Even when I spoke Korean to them they looked clueless! I knew I was in for a rough semester! 

I'm proud to say that I have one week left with them and all 13 of us have survived!  

Not only have we survived, but we've managed to learn a good bit... Me, how to manage a classroom full of little people who don't understand English, and them, how to learn English from a lady who doesn't speak fluent Korean! It was a joint effort, and I'm a lil proud to say the least! 

In the last 3 1/2 months, they have successfully learned: 

1. Their ABC's and the sounds that go with each letter. 

2. Numbers 1-20 

3. All 12 Colors in a crayon box. 

4. Classroom items (book, notebook, pencil, eraser, computer, desk, chair, clock, stapler, tape, glue, box, board, TV, etc) 

5. How are you? I'm fine/okay/great/sad/tired. 

6. How old are you? I'm 5/6/7. 

7. Can you _________? 

8. I like _________. 

9. What's your favorite color/food/animal? 

10. What's the first letter of (blah blah blah word). 

11. What's a word that starts with A/B/C/D/E.... 

12. Please / Thank you / You're welcome.

Can you believe it?! Their little brains are such sponges!  For today's class, I made a little worksheet I like to call CRACK THE CODE!  I was such a puzzle freak as a child that I could only hope that the lil ones would like it!  Good news is, they loved it, and it ended up being a huge hit!  I gave them this HINT paper, which showed the Korean alphabet next to the English alphabet, in case they forgot.
 (iphone photo)

Then, I gave them this back to back paper with Korean letters written under blank lines.  They had to crack the code and write the English word.  They could check it with the picture next to it... which I drew!  LOL  BTW: The yellow circles are how we "check" things in Korea.  Teachers don't just write X's when something's wrong, we circle it when it's right!  As you can see, sweet lil Lisa (1st grader) got "beg jom", 100%! 

 (iphone photo)

Can you believe they did it?!  One little boy, who's the social butterfly of the class, liked it so much that he asked me if he could take his "hint paper" home so he could study with his mom!  Aaaaahhhhh.... 

(iphone photo)

I'm so proud of my little Korean babies and a little proud of myself too!  :)