this week i learned...

...that eating the lunch from my school's cafeteria is like playing russian roulette.

...that i've really missed playing piano. but, i bought a keyboard on thursday. and i've already learned how to play "heartbreaker". ohh, g-dragon...

...that i apparently look like anne hathaway. i've been told that three times by three different, random korean guys. i'm hoping this is a good thing...

...that it's probably not a good idea for the most uncoordinated, non-graceful person on the planet to sign up for dance lessons. but, somehow, my sixth grade coteacher managed to convince me to sign up for a dance class that she teaches at hongik university in seoul. so i start salsa tomorrow. eek.

~m~

안녕하세요, or i'm really bad at coming up with titles and even worse at updating my blog

ok, so i realize that this is overdue. long overdue.
i could give you a million excuses explaining why it took me THREE MONTHS to update my blog...my school has this website blocked, i'm too busy, i'm too tired, etc. etc. etc...and, while all are true, they're still nothing more than excuses.
the truth is that so much has happened these past three months that i had no idea what to write--no idea where i could possibly begin. my words cannot even begin to describe all of the amazing [and strange] experiences i've had since arriving in korea...and that's just a little bit intimidating.

sooooo here it goes...

first of all, i have to start by saying that i absolutely lovveee korea. i'm even warming up to korean food :] [i'm also not a vegetarian anymore due to severe starvation issues haha]
i mean, how could i not love a country that has this:

[umm, yess please!!] [and that's t.o.p from bigbang, by the way...]

anyways...i also absolutely love my school--especially my kids!! i have three coteachers [who are all superawesome, by the way], and i teach 3rd-6th grades at buwon elementary school. in 3rd-5th grades, there are nine classes with about 30-32 kids in each class; 6th grade has ten classes with about the same number of kids per class. so i'm teaching A LOT of kids!! i'm also teaching english club twice a week, which i absolutely love [because we play lots of games, and i like games ^^ <--korean smiley face haha] i've already had two open classes, which is when the prinicpal, vice principal, and random teachers show up to watch you--super intimidating!! fortunately, my kids are rock stars, which makes both open class and regular class a million times better!!

this is a picture from my second open class, in grad 6 class 1...with my coteacher yullia!!

apart from teaching, i've also taken time to "experience" korea...wayyyyy too much to talk about in one blog entry, so i'll try to touch on the highlights!!

after leaving training in jeonju, i've mostly hung around the incheon/seoul area, although i have ventured away a few times. i went to visit whitney in imgye, gangwon-do [about 4 hours away from me] for an unsuccessful attempt at spearfishing. last weekend, i went hiking at seoraksan, which is the third tallest mountain in korea but apparently the most famous because of the amazing view!! there were times on this hike that i literally thought i was going to die, but whitney and i were in it together, encouraging each other the whole way...the whole way up the stairs from hades. for real. i felt like i was climbing up the tower of babel...because the stairs never seemed to end!! but, once we made it to the top we realized that it was totally worth it!!

yesterday, i went to a lantern festival in seoul...all of the lights and the cold weather reminded me of christmas!! there were a lot of huge, colorful lanterns shaped like dragons, birds, and people. the display was located on a stream, and the lights seemed to dance across the water...absolutely stunning.

i've also been to two concerts already...one was the dream concert and the other was for the closing weekend of the incheon global fair and festival. i went to both to see bigbang. because they are awesome and i love them. [yes, i have joined the kpop craze...don't judge me ^^]

there are so many more things that i could write about, but i think i have written more than enough for one post!! i promise to be better about updating my blog so you won't have to read monstrosities like this again [assuming anyone actually reads this thing...]

until next time~~

~m~