Cancun

Our hotel

View behind our hotel

Yummy

View from the restaurant

A cenote

Her name is Monica Lewinsky. Guess why?

Mayan man carving woodwork

Chichen-Itza

Sunset on the beach

I wanna go back!

Students

They never fail to amaze me.

E-mail from a student I taught at a demo class in Changwon, Korea:

hello,sir

Oh, I want to go to Mexico

I think so long to send mail to

I'm sorry I been so busy mail motbonaeteoyo

Understanding monsieur??

I have these days very busy.

School gotta realize why I'm praying this is not it

6 years's at,,, I now have 3 more months

Can I have one year of shaking.

I'd like to see.

(Yes, she addresses me as "sir" in every e-mail. And "monsieur" apparently too. Guess she thinks it's polite?)

I don't quite understand all of it, but I think it reads like a poem, especially the last 4 lines, don't you?

California

Cousin reunion!

Games!

In the kitchen

My 2nd youngest cousin, Katelyn

The baby, Ethan

And (you guessed it), I miss them too!

Camp Fulbright in Pictures

Me and my roommate!

Oh Jung Sun - always the camper with a happy smile!

Team 2: Team Awesome! The team that's gonna BLOSSOM!

Mundo, my camp counselor

Michael, my junior counselor

(Can you believe he's 13?)

My class

Ho Hyuk, one of my students

One of my students in drag for Fulbright idol!

Sports Club

Aww...

I miss them too. :(

Fall Semester

My students started classes again yesterday.

I miss them. :(

Once upon a time at Camp Fulbright...

Once upon a time at Camp Fulbright...

There was a monster.

The monster eats humans for meal.

everyone eat to go to the monster.

But. suddenly monster dead.

People really happy.

People drank a toast.

All people had party.

People play game.

!! comeback monster!!!!

But Die because slide on stairs.

The students hear a big crashing sound and all of them start running

and the monster is evolution the chau (man-eating pig) and everybody was die.

Student Letters

Before I left my school, my students wrote letters to me... Some of them are pretty insightful...

...

Your nickname is Salmon

This animal is child -> go sea

but adelt -> go back.

You, too,

Some text messaged me. They are just so cute... *sigh*

S: 데비 지금까지 가르쳐 주셔서 감사합니다. 시유 데이 굿바이

(Debi, thank you for teaching me up 'til now. (And, in Hangeul,) See you day. Good bye.)

Me: thank you! you're so kind! but who is this?

S: my lee chang hee

Me: 이창희 땡큐! (Lee Chang Hee, thank you!) ^^ you are a good boy

S: good boy

Some letters came with pictures too.

"Special Bonus: Comic story~"

My sentiments exactly. ㅠ.ㅠ

Finished!

I made it through the year! Finished teaching today. Said my goodbyes and took a 5 hour bus ride to Chuncheon (which was shorter than I thought - thought it was going to be 6...). Am back in Chuncheon where I started my year in Korea. Although for the past month or so, I have not thought past 4:50pm today. Right now, it's still Tuesday, July 14, 4:50pm to me. But I miss my students already. (;_;)

More later.

Maybe.

Doh!

So, I totally meant to make a blog entry before July 1st, but I guess that didn't happen...

Well, now that I procrastinated this much, why stop? (Or, why start?)

To give a very brief update though, after deciding to extend, I changed my mind and decided to go home. (Long story, which may or may not be explained later.) So I'll be Stateside sometime in August! Yay!

Well, I guess after a month and a half, this must have a been a very satisfying entry...

More later! >.<

Homework

After correcting 4 classes of 5th grade's homework (read: over 120 notebooks) in the past 2 days, this one made me laugh.

Lesson 4: What a nice day!

Homework assignment: Make a story or role play using "What a ____ ____!" (5+ sentences)

Student's response:
"I went to the park with my friend.
I: What a nice day!!!
f1: What a beautiful flower!!!
f2: Oh! What is this?
I: What a big DDONG (-> 똥)!! (=What a big piece of crap!)
f1: Oh! No!

He met the assignment requirements. Creative. Hilarious. The grammar was perfect too.

Marijuana and Beethoven

Last week, Pohang Cinema changed its name to Lotte Cinema, so they gave out free tickets for two days. I wanted to take my host brothers with me, and because of after school tutoring they were only free between 5 and 8pm. Also, you can only see certain movies with these tickets. There was only one movie playing at 5pm called 말리와나. I sounded it out to myself - Mar-ri-wa-na... Marijuana? And it's a movie for 12 and up. I thought, What kind of movie called Marijuana could be appropriate for 12+?" I walked up to the counter to order tickets.
"6 tickets for Marijuana," I said.
The lady at the counter looked a little confused, but then she got it when I pointed to the poster with movie times for the free tickets. "Oh ok, 6 tickets for 말리와나?" (My Korean kind of sucks.)
Just to be sure, I wanted to ask her about the movie. I started to ask "Is this movie really about drugs?" But then I thought I shouldn't phrase the question that way so I said, "What kind of movie is this?"
Her answer was something like "ㅁㄴㅇㄽㄷㅈㅂ거든요.ㅎㅈㅠㄴBeethovenㅈㄷㄱㅎ이에요."
I walked away with my tickets and went to meet my friend with this information: "We're watching a movie about Beethoven (like ba-ba-ba-buumm Beethoven) called Marijuana for 12+ year olds."
"I thought we were watching Duplicity." (Before I realized the free tickets were only good for certain movies, we had wanted to watch Duplicity.)
"Nope. We're watching Marijuana."
Then, after a couple seconds, from marijuana and Beethoven, she somehow managed to figure out: "Oh, it's Marley and Me!"
(Told you my Korean sucks. But don't tell me you wouldn't have thought the same thing if you had seen it.)

+ =

To extend or not to extend?

Am trying to make the tough decision of whether I should stay in Korea (where I can stay with my program, get paid, and have health insurance, not to mention continuing working with the cutest Korean elementary school students) or go back to the U.S. (where my home and family are and people speak English and don't all look the same).

I feel like I'm at a fork in the road of my life and either way would take me in a different direction and not necessarily be better or worse than the other, but will I be thinking about the road not taken?

Deadline to decide my "life" (or just the next year of it anyway) is Friday.

Advice is welcome although I probably won't listen to it anyway.

Jeju in Pictures

Because I haven't put up pictures in a while.
And because I'm too lazy to write words.

Our hotel

Our hotel room

Pond behind the hotel

Ladies at Jeju Folk Village making rope from straw

Man at the Folk Village carving words out of wood

At Seongsan Sunrise Peak

View from Sunrise Peak

On the way up (or down?)

Phew! Made it to the top!

Looking down

With the Harubang that you see all over Jeju

Cheonjiyeon Waterfall