Hello April!

It's Monday night. It just started raining. And I'm eating a choco pie.

Classes were fairly easy today. I didn't have to take roll because the home room teacher didn't leave me with an attendance sheet for April. She'll probably have one printed out by tomorrow. I occupied my 1st graders with a worksheet packet on the letters A and B. Man do they struggle. I accidentally excused them 10 minutes early because I confused their class with another class, which tacked on an extra 10 minutes to my break. buahaha. 

My 3rd and 4th graders went wild because we played their favorite game: The Angry Birds Game. It's basically a PowerPoint activity where teams take turns answering questions hidden behind panels labeled with letters from the alphabet. If the student answers the question or identifies the picture correctly, then they move onto a slide with pictures of Angry Birds or green pigs. Angry Birds = points. Green pigs = minus points. If the student doesn't know the answer, then we return to the main screen. It's so simple, but it makes the kids so competitive. Today the girls' team chanted the word for "pig" in Korean hoping that the boys -- who were winning -- would lose a point. Whether a team wins or loses a point, this age group is in an uproar. It's nuts.

I repeated the same lesson with my 5th and 6th graders. They appeared less enthused because they are older, but they still looked mildly entertained. I excused them 5 minutes early because we breezed through the lesson pretty quickly.

Here are some photos of my students. I'm getting better with names, mostly because I use that information to focus the direction of my yelling -- "종표 (Jongpyo), sit down!!!" "이민혁 (Lee Minhyuck), put that away!!!":

1st graders: Yunseo, [gah, I forgot], Jihwan

More 1st graders: That one in the front NEVER listens.

2nd graders: I gave them English names, so I know them as Brad and Jack.

2nd Graders: Alex, Brad, Jack, Peter

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Cafeteria food!

It's seriously the best Korean food I've ever eaten and these kids eat it every school day.

Yep, those are fresh strawberries!

Cafeteria lunch on the day that parents came in to meet the homeroom teachers:
떡국 with fish, sticky rice, kimchi, and melon

♥ Maple Latte at Coffee Meal -- Best latte in town!

Chicken burger & spicy fries at Kunichi BurgerThe fries were hot! 

Pork dinner at 원할머니 in Mokpo

Home made fried rice with stir fried organic green bell peppers, organic kale, and organic carrots :) 

PHOTOS: Home-Cooking & Cafeteria Nasties

Organic tofu with sliced mushrooms & kale
stir fried in organic chopped garlic & olive oil.
Mexican Style Rice A Roni

More of the same veggies. Different kind of rice.

I found this gem in my cafeteria soup yesterday. I don't care what people say -- clams, oysters, whatever! I swear it is a snail.  There were 2 of them in my soup. Ahhhhh, it was so gross. Usually there are small clams floating between the seaweed, but these things were huge! I cautiously covered them with the seaweed so that I wouldn't have to look at them. Ughhhhh.

7 Highlights from Today

7. I got 9 hours of sleep last night and am feeling significantly less sick. I think I am just sleep deprived.


6. I caught a glimpse of the Western Republican Presidential Debate live from Las Vegas. It was actually really, really interesting. Never been so intrigued about politics in my life. Looking forward to following the election from Korea and voting in the 2012 election.


5. It's Wednesday. The younger kids always forget that class starts earlier and don't show up. Not my fault!

Hannee with the 1st grade girls who showed up

4. School ended 40 minutes earlier, so I used the extra hour (and the high-speed Internet at school) to watch an episode of GLEE.

3. My friend / co-teacher Hannee told a 3rd grader to run out and get us ice-cream cones before class started. This is the life.

Hannee Teacher eating ice-cream instead of teaching 3rd grade
nom nom nom nom

2. Justin Bieber released the music video for his new song, "Mistletoe."

1. I received a colossal 10lb package from mom & dad!!! This includes mashed potatoes, Mexican style rice, refried beans, M&Ms, lentil soup, split pea soup, dried fruit, nuts, refried beans, heaps of tea, garbanzo beans, hummus, pita chips, health bars, seasoning/spices, more socks, my new camera, refried beans, 3 Korean phrase books, and documents for my impending loans (yay). I was pretty overwhelmed by the size of the box. It's like Christmas in October! I can't wait to dig into the hummus and pita chips. nom nom nom nom. 

I half-expected a small person to jump out of this box

♥ Thank you Mom & Dad! ♥

#WINNING

DINNER
Fried rice with organic egg, organic baby tomatoes, organic garlic, wild parsley
Side of kale, swiss chard, & parsley with garlic
Fresh baby tomatoes & kimchi

*Care packages are officially highly encouraged*

;)

PHOTOS: Mondaze~

5 MINS BEFORE CLASS:
A few of my 4th grade girls dance to miss A's "Goodbye Baby," 
while the music video plays in the background.
Meanwhile, the boys are running around like clowns.
Notice the boy on the right --------->

One of the 4th grade boys took over my desk.

DINNER:
Organic mini bow tie pasta with organic baby tomatoes, organic chopped garlic, & wild parsley.
Side of organic carrots, more baby tomatoes, kimchi.
Swiss chard & kale made with organic chopped garlic and organic extra virgin olive oil.
Delicious!

FACT: I have never made pasta before!
And I successfully made it al dente.
Watch out Food Network -- There's a new star in town.

A Quiet Weekend in Mokpo Never Sounded So Good

Despite my respiratory battles with the air in my apartment, I have had a pretty good weekend in Mokpo.

On Friday, I went to the YP Bookstore with Joanne on a quest to find the first book in the Game of Thrones series. The bookstore has a wide selection of useless trinkets and perfumes, but the English section has slim pickings. There are two small shelves with "celebrity" novels in the literary world: Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, The Da Vinci Code, Romeo & Juliet, Great Expectations, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and some non-fiction books about Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Believe it or not, I found the third and fourth books from Game of Thrones, but the first one was sold out. Bummer! I know I can just download the books online. I actually have the first book in a .PDF file on my desktop, but reading a book on paper is so much easier on the eyes.

Afterwards, we went to Emart. Friday nights appear to be prime time for shoppers in Mokpo, so there were heaps of free samples of red bean buns to dumplings, wine, beer, and grapes. We puttered around for an hour and a half. I bought some glittery nail polish, so my nails can look like disco balls. We walked home happy with McDonald's choco cones in hand.

I've spent more time Skyping with Michele. It turns out that Kyoto and Mokpo are in the same time zone!

On Saturday, I had that smoke problem. I won't go into it again. I went for a run because the local fuel exhaust was the lesser of two evils at the time. And then I painted my nails. Black French tip with a sparkly grey and sparkly pink base, topped with blue and gold disco glitter.

On Sunday, I woke up late and puttered around. I went back to Emart to do some grocery shopping. Purchased some organic baby tomatoes, garlic, eggs, mini bow tie pasta, and extra virgin olive oil. Also bought some inorganic (aka regular) kale, swiss chard, wild parsley, and black soy milk (I read this has more calcium). I have big plans tomorrow to make mini bow tie pasta with parsley, kale, chopped garlic, and extra virgin olive oil. It's going to be amazing.

For dinner, I finished off the vegetables in my fridge. Here we have fresh organic carrots / green bell peppers and a steamed sweet potato. Egg scrambled with kale, parsley, and chopped garlic in extra virgin olive oil. And a side of kimchi.

Bon Appétit!

Random October Photos

Pink flowers abundantly line my walk up to Daebul

Mini red roses blossomed in my classroom

Kristine Teacher has a cold. Desk littered with coffee and various medicines to get through the day.

Translation: Kristine Seungsengnim (Kristine Teacher)

Before class with some of my 1st graders

Spotted at Emart: Samples of sandwich cheese. It costs $6.60 and doesn't taste like anything.

Spotted at Emart in the Organic Section: Chocolate covered raisins & almonds for $9-$12

DINNER:
Organic sweet potato stuffed with red bell peppers, gochu (hot green peppers)
Omelet with red bell peppers & gochu
Cubes of acorn jelly with gochu & soy sauce

DINNER:
Homemade soup with a mushroom flavor base
Cubes of organic tofu
Slices of organic carrot
Slices of organic green bell pepper
With a side of organic sweet potato

Home-Cooking

I am living out my Food Network fantasies and making delicious meals made for television!

My first home-cooked meal: Korean side dishes, rice, fried tofu with egg, orange juice

First home-cooked meal

Mixing it up: Korean side dishes with fried rice with egg & tofu

Cooking for two: Fried rice with egg & tofu sprinkled with seaweed; Side of mandu (dumplings) on a bed of seaweed 

Yummy

Kimchi fried rice with an egg on top

Rice with tofu, Korean side dishes, boiled egg on a bed of lettuce with kiwi sauce drizzle on the side

Fried bananas with kiwi drizzle on the side