Video Extravaganza

Some of our kindergarten classes graduated last weekend. The ceremony was at Sogang University. I'm so glad graduation is over. Everyone was getting beyond tired of practicing their songs, dance moves, skits, etc. I unfortunately don't have film of the "star" of the show. Sally, who is in Meredith's class, did not move the whole time she was on stage. The rest of her class did a pretty good job. At the beginning of March she switched to the other SLP campus. I believe the embarassment drove her parents to switch her to a different zip code. :)

The butterflies practicing in the waiting room:



Pre-show jitters:



Miss Polly:



♥

Too cute

I have been really sick since Wednesday morning and stayed home from work yesterday and today. I have a horrible cough (which at times actually makes me vomit), a fever (I have been drenched in sweat since 2 this afternoon), absolutely no appetite, major joint pain, and moderate pain EVERYWHERE else. Maria had her two kindergarten classes make get-well cards for me yesterday. All of them are priceless, but I wanted to share a few of my favorites with you. I got them last night and some of the students decided to put a letter inside a letter inside a letter inside a letter...and enclosed them with a shitload of scotch tape. I thought, "Thanks, guys. I don't have the energy to even try to open your get-well letters right now." Anyway, the school Christmas party is going on right now at a restaurant that's near our apartment. We did Secret Santa. I chose Mr. Yang's name. Mr. Yang is one of the owners of SLP. Our head teacher told me he really likes soju (the Korean version of vodka) but I decided the gift of tea would be better. :) I sent my gift along with Meredith. I'm pretty bummed out that I'm not well enough to attend the party. And I am supposed to stay at a Buddhist temple this weekend and I don't think I'm going to make it to that either. Ok, on to the get-well cards...



Ashley has no idea who I am. I've never had her in class. I'm fairly sure she will know my gender once she meets me. And I think "dan mite me" is supposed to be "then meet me." :)







I have absolutely no idea what "come back without your body" means, but it's enticing nonetheless.

PS: The kindergartners speak much better than they write. Believe me.

North Korea, Sparring, Turkey, and Goose Track Meet

There's nothing like doing a mind-numbing amount of report cards to make me realize, "I really need to blog. I really need to clean my apartment. I need to do anything other than report cards."

I went to the DMZ a few weeks ago with Meredith T., Meredith D., Darcie, and Imee. It was cold, rainy, and foggy...but I found that somewhat fitting. A visit to the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea isn't a ray of sunshine.





Here is Imee with one of the ROK soldiers. A lot of people got silly photos taken with the ROK soldiers, but the whole situation really bothered me. They stand there for hours in the taekwondo stance so they can immediately fight back if they need to.



Speaking of taekwondo...I sparred at taekwondo class a couple weeks ago. It was my first time. My instructor put me up against Justin--a 4th grader who is approximately 2 feet tall and -12 pounds. And he's far more advanced than I am. My friend Katie tried to get some good action shots of our sparring, but that's kind of difficult. I did get a point in toward the end. I promptly fell on my knees with all my weight, but at least I got a point.



Some of my class: Moi, Katie, Justin, July, and Claire



I had a pretty good Thanksgiving. We all met at Cecelia's apartment (she works at the other SLP campus). We got a turkey and all of the necessary sidedishes from the military base. It was soooo delicious. I brought a ridiculous amount of Sparkling Cider from Costco. :)

We went on a school field trip that week to a sports museum. There was a ton of cool stuff there.





This was by far my favorite station, though. :)



Meredith T. finished her contract and moved back to the U.S. on Tuesday. A new teacher arrived. His name is Greg. He's from Toronto.

I apparently don't have the energy to write anything worthwhile. I had more fun posting pictures for this entry.

Peace, love, and kimchi~
Carly

Daring Souls

Yesterday I went to Danyang (a small town about 2.5 hours out of Seoul) with Imee, Erwin, Lee, Jennifer, Tracy, and Meredith...because we're crazy. We each flew in an ultralight aircraft. It was an incredibly long day. The weather was iffy so we did a lot of waiting once we got there. It was really chilly. Our pilot was great. He had a ritual of drinking a cup of coffee and smoking two cigarettes between all of our flights. He spoke no English. He used one of our dictionaries to say to Tracy, "You are very well-built." Ha! Thankfully, Erwin has been studying Korean for quite some time so he was our translator. I'm getting used to the language barrier but it's a bit more disconcerting when there's a barrier between yourself and the person who is flying you over mountains in a tiny aircraft. Everything went smoothly except when an ambulance made an appearance. A man hurt himself when he was hanggliding (he was training so he was just gliding off of a small hill). He's ok. Apparently he broke his collarbone.

Here is the aircraft we flew in:



Here's Erwin all decked-out in his flight suit. Once you step foot on to Korean soil you're required to pose with the peace sign in every picture you're in. :)



Erwin was a little nervous so we decided to be his cheerleaders. Here we are trying to contort our bodies to spell E-R-W-I-N. Meredith, who is supposed to be the N, completely cracks me up.



Imee was the first one to go flying.



I decided against bringing my camera up with me since I don't have a strap on it. I had Meredith take some pics with my camera instead.







Here are some amaaaazing photos Lee posted on Facebook.






(From left to right: Tracy, Erwin, Imee, Pilot, Meredith, Jennifer, Lee, and myself)

It was awesome. I'm not afraid of heights at all so I wasn't very nervous. It was a spectacular view of the mountains and autumn leaves. It was great just getting out of Seoul for the day and actually breathing fresh air. :)

Safe and sound,
Carly

"Yes, it's too late to turn back now."

I'm so glad Halloween is over.

Here is a picture of me with Meredith Teacher. I wore my Taekwondo uniform as my costume. Most of the kids loved it. Some of the kids were like, "Teacher! My belt, it is black!" Of course it is, kids. Of course.



Here is Jasmine Teacher. She's really too cute for words. She's a Starbucks fiend, so this picture is perfect.



We have a birthday party at the end of every month. Here are the students with October birthdays. As you can see, they were all docile except for Spiderman in back (Brian).



Here is Harry who is in one of my afternoon classes.



Sometimes what gets me through the day is walking into the classroom and seeing something like this written on the board.



Going out with my fellow teachers on Halloween night sucked and it was painfully obvious that I no longer drink. So I went home incredibly early.

Anyway, I started Taekwondo two weeks ago. It's so hardcore. On Monday night I pulled my groin during warm-up (go figure) and was out of commission the rest of the night. I took Tuesday night off. I went back on Wednesday and my groin didn't hurt because my knee pain took my mind off of it. My ankles are swollen and I have busted veins in my left foot. I really like the discipline of it and I hope my former flexibility will come back to me soon. My instructor, Master Kang, teaches mostly in English. Most of the people who attend are foreigners who are here for various reasons: teaching, acting, marketing, etc.

I am going to the DMZ with Meredith T. and Meredith D. in two weeks. I'm kind of excited about it but it seems more like something I NEED to visit while I'm here.

Oh yeah, I said I would talk about the traffic here. I decided I need to have my grandparents make me a shirt that says, "Dear diary, I almost got hit by a car again today." Drivers have no regard for pedestrians here and it infuriates me (and Meredith). You should see us walking somewhere together. We yell, "Fuck!" and "Peace!" in unison quite often because that's what happens when we almost get nailed by a motorcycle that is speeding down the SIDEWALK. I don't drive so I've never understood the concept of road rage, but now I do. Once my heart stops pounding wildly and my life stops flashing before my eyes, sometimes I want to kick the car or motorcycle really hard...which would be easy because it's usually inches away from ramming my knee. When I'm in the United States I'm pretty good about not jay-walking, but that doesn't even matter here. When I'm at a crosswalk and the light changes, I still wait for the two or three cars that are bound to run the light. Sometimes I feel like I'm in a video game where drivers score points if they hit a pedestrian. It's terrifying.

Election Day is coming up and I feel very detached from it even though I sent in my absentee ballot last week. Let's hope for the best.

xo,
Carly

Peeeeace.

I'll do a blog entry sometime this weekend. It's Halloween tomorrow so I'm sure I'll have some fantastic pictures from school. I've been listening to my kindergartners and it sounds like there will be very little variety when it comes to costumes. We're going to have a lot of witches, princesses, and Batmans. I'm going to wear my taekwondo uniform and I'm sure my kids will love it.

So, this weekend you will hear (and see) more about:
-Halloween at SLP
-learning taekwondo and all the pain that goes along with it
-our plans to visit the DMZ in a couple weeks
-drivers not caring about pedestrians WHATSOEVER

♥

"I'm gonna go where the green is...don't wanna live for brown."

Today I took the subway to Ttukseom Forest because I had an overwhelming desire to see grass, flowers, and trees.





I stopped at a tiny store before I left Ttukseom and they had "IGA" on the door. It made me happy.



I walked around the Ewha Women's University area to find a piercing parlor because one of my earrings fell out yesterday and I can't put it back in by myself. I never found Crow (the parlor that's supposed to be by the university) but I did find a cell phone charm. I told myself I would never buy one, but then I found this one. It's dumb and oh-so-Western, which is why I love it.



This week has found me very sick and tired of my job and Seoul in general.