hello 2006

carey, marla, et moi


well happy new year. as always, it feels like the year just flew by. it's weird to me that i'm in bed sleeping and relaxing after my night out and i'm talking to friends at home who are just getting ready to go out. that pic there is of a couple of our teachers who came to school ready to go out. (jae young and ji yawng) the peace sign is huge here. you'll be hard pressed to get korean friends to NOT make the peace sign in a picture. whatever, spread the love.

so we ended up going to a couple of bars. the first one was a little hole in the wall place where a friend of marlas was singing. it was cool even though i was in emo overload. there were a lot of moonkkang peeps there. the next 3 pics are all from that bar. marla got a new camera for christmas so she basically snap shots every moment of our life now.

the second bar we went to is called gypsy. it was PACKED. but we did a lot of dancing. it was really fun, but not a place that i think i could frequent every weekend, though the music was really good. not the place for you if you're looking for conversation.



greg and marla (there are about a hundred like this.. i'll spare you)

so i've had a cold, or, i think the bird flu.. all week... so i thought this cab driver was so considerate..



i love these kids. they're one of my favourite classes. they're all really smart, and really fun. i basically pee my pants everytime i have them. unfortunately that was my last class with them. all new classes starting tomorrow.

yesterday we worked our last saturday shift. i'm nervous about the new curriculum (sp) but i'm happy for a change at the same time. the days will be an hour longer but it's totally worth it to finally have a real weekend to look forward to.

korean new year is coming up as well.. the end of the month.. so we have a long weekend and so i'm heading up to seoul, the big city.. i will let you all know how that goes.. i'm so getting lost..

thanks again for all the gifts and cards, i'm still getting things in the mail.. it rocks, and so do you!

love ya
jen xxoo

Not Again!

alright.. i don't know if it's this frieking country, or the mass amounts of dirty little rascals that i'm forced to associate with everyday but i'm sick AGAIN! this is may be the 12th terrible cold i've had since i've been here. i actually had to leave a class today because i was coughing so much. crap crap crap crap crap.

yes i'm taking medicine. yes mom and nana i'm drinking juice and getting lots of sleep. i'm aware i have a crappy immune system.

arg!

Happy Festivus

Well yesterday was Christmas.. and today I have to go to work..

Christmas was definitely different being away from home. I got up around 10 and talked to mom on the phone to open my gifts. Thank yous out to everyone who sent me cards and presents. It was so nice to open things here. I got to talk to Gramps too, and Charlie. I also got to talk to dad, nana, papa and aunt debbie a little while later. It was weird not being a part of the Christmas celebrations at home. I normally get to celebrate it at least 3 or 4 times. I did get to talk to Meg and hear her open her gifts from me. Blake called me around midnight too.

A bunch of us got together for dinner and we did a really good job of making a dinner as much like home as possible. I ate so much, afterwards all I wanted to do was lay there like a beached whale. So I did.

We had to work Christmas Eve which sucked. After that a few of us went to a cafe by our apartment to do a secret santa gift exchange. It was all good but it did make me miss everyone so much!

Anyways, there are pictures but I havn't uploaded them. I will soon.

it's beginning to look a lot like...

well it finally snowed today.. real snow too.. big snow.. i'm so happy.. it's strange because i was dreading it so much but now that it's here, i sort of feel like i'm home.. there were children playing on the streets, my kids were so excited.. "jenny teacher, snow! snow!" .. any tendancies towards being a grinch are gone..

what is it about the snow that actually makes me feel like it's warmer out? snow is a good look for korea.. everything looks cleaner and it hides that sewage/pollution/garbage smell.. i'm so afraid i'm going to smell like that when i go home..

anyways, i walked home and am now brimming with christmas spirit.. PLUS tomorrow is saturday and i have a christmas party to go to, and then i have sunday off... 3 more saturdays to work..

after work we went to a game room.. i kicked marlas ass in jenga.. don't even THINK she wasn't trying to psych me out.. that's what happens when you don't play fair.. karma comes to kick you in the ass..

seasons greetings (how pc am i?!)

i am canadian

check out what marla bought me for my birthday.. apparantly she made the clerk take it off of a mannequin... this is SO much cooler than wearing a patch on my bag..

i am the steve urkel of south korea

i know i'm a clutz, you know i'm a clutz and now korea knows it too.

yesterday we were going to the movies.. a nice mix of korean and foreigner friends.. we went to see prime love which was cute (i adore meryl streep, she's one classy lady full of poise and grace).. so i fall going UP the stairs infront of everyone.. not just a little trip mind you, a full blown, fall right on your face there's no salvaging this situation face plant..

then today, i'm shopping for my secret santa present.. we stop at starbucks for a little break.. things are good, i've almost forgotten my embarassment from the night before when i get up to put on my jacket and somehow manage to knock over the christmas tree.. completely over.. it falls apart, ornaments go flying.. my impulse is to run.. far far away from the situation.. i'll run like the flash and they'll never know the foreigner did it.. that doesn't work.. and a guy who works for my school has to put the tree back together and apologize to everyone while i hang my head in shame..

summary, i'm an ass.. never take me anywhere nice.. i'm a midget sized bull in a china shop wherever i go..

basically marla won't let me live this one down ever.. especially after i told her the story about the time i burnt my eye on the steam from my bag of popcorn.. ahem

so today 2 of marlas students were almost expelled for starting a fire in the classroom.

i know that i complain about my v-unit class but at least i'm never in danger. they only hurt my pride.

going to try the thai place in town tomorrow for lunch. if all goes well i won't have to take a bullet train for an hour everytime i'm craving pad thai. yea yea.

so today has been fairly interesting and fun.. middle schoolers are away studying for exams so we have just been hanging out and playing cards...

our manager is teaching the leftover students for us now.. bless his heart..

so Marla wrote this about me in her blog today ::

Wednesday, December 07, 2005
I'm at work, not working because all of our middle school kids are studying for their mid-terms so we have time off... yeaaah! Jenny is so funny, she keeps saying the funniset things, not as funny as me of course, but funny. For example: she hates eye balls, like in Kill Bill when Uma steps on the woman's eyeball she sais that's the grossest thing ever and so she said to me (to prove her point)
"If you were hanging by your eyeball on the brink of falling to your death and I had no hands to save you, I WOULD NOT put your eyeball in my mouth to pull you to safety!"
Can you believe that? I mean, I thought we were friends...
Tonight she was talking about carrier doves... I then reminded her that it was "carrier pigeons" and we all had a good laugh at her expense and I offered the owl alternative for nocternal deliveries... I am a frieking visionary!
Later
M

it's true. i really hate eyeballs.

so the interesting part of my day involved travelling back in time alittle bit. i have this one I6 class. this means they are elementary kids, level 6. they are all boys, about 13 years old. the potential for problems is, of course, endless. when i first started teaching them they were such a handful in terms of discipline. i found myself screaming at the top of my lungs each day that i saw them. as of late, they've been better but their mind seems to be occupied by other things. let me give you a run down:

3 weeks ago:
i catch a kid throwing a comic book around class. i confiscate it, open it to find out that it's porn. comic book porn i guess? not real pictures but drawn sexual pictures of girls. i found it funny, the kid was mortified. whatever, i got over it.

2 weeks ago:
same class. we have a substitute teacher teaching next door to us and the boys start making jokes about how i'm inlove with him and fighting over him with another female teacher. it was funny, i laugh again. then, this kid.. a different on tells me "teacher i know your scandal" and starts sticking his tongue through his cheek in a very suggesting manner. i'm shocked. don't really know how to deal with it so i go with denial. that must be some korean gesture that means something not offensive at all, and just happens to be sexual in western culture.

cough cough.

today:
same class. a different student stops the lesson to tell me that his teacher had taught him a word today and he wants to know what it means. the word is bukake. my nana reads this blog so i'm not going to define the word. safe to say it's quite dirty. i tell him if he wants to know he should go ask the manager. the boys giggle. half an hour later i notice the boys aren't doing their work and seem distracted. i discover that they are busy making replicas of vaginas with their fingers. i lost it. i yelled "i realize that you're 13 year old boys but could you refrain from making vaginas with your hands while you're in my class!!" or something to that effect. then i left class and laughed some more.

i find it all really funny but i have this feeling if i don't put a stop to this it will get way out of hand. i'm here to teach english not sex-ed.

so that's been my day so far. and it's not even 9:30 pm yet.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

thanks for all the cards, presents and emails everyone... i miss you all and wish i could be with you today

lots of love

celebrations of all kinds

ok... i've uploaded a variety of pictures from the last week or so... i'm not too sure how to incorporate the pics within the text so there's no rhyme or reason to the order... meh...

last wednesday we had a work party.. it was fun.. and free.. gotta love the free.. it was a celebration for us going to regular weeks, as well as a group birthday party..

yesterday i went to pusan.. i went with carey, marla and joanne for my birthday.. we caught the 10:23 am train and arrived around 11:3o on no sleep.. mom called me at around 3 am from a christmas family party.. it was nice getting to talk to everyone but i was not able to get to sleep after that.. and i was a little sad to be missing out on the christmas fun.. i would kill for some egg nog right now.. i never planned for that..

anyways, first stop was thai food.. then i went back to the aquarium for a couple of hours.. hence the picture of the octopus.. we retreated from the cold for a little while in starbucks.. can you believe it snowed for the first time on sunday! so we took lots of pictures to amuse ourselves, and had some peppermint mochas.. we then went shopping and for some indian food for dinner.. then got some sparklers on the beach! you can get all kinds of fireworks anywhere here.. and there doesn't seem to be any regulations on where to use them... that's me in the orange puffy coat.. it doubles my size.. i feel like george costanza in it (anyone who watches seinfeld and knows the gortex coat episode should be laughing)

ummmm what else? teaching is the same.. i have a couple of new classes.. the middle schoolers have exams so we get some time off... i love exam season...

tomorrow is my birthday.. well i guess it's after midnight so today is my birthday.. it's weird.. it doesn't feel like as big of a deal here.. people make a big deal about it but it doesn't feel real.. i think it's because i'm not with my regular group of friends.. i miss everyone so much!! i'm talking to kocela right now on msn about how it's the first year in many many years he hasn't spent my birthday with me.. hopefully i'll have many more to celebrate..

well i'm off... only 4 more saturdays to work!

love you

jenny xxoo