Back to Work

It has been quite a while since I have posted an update, and a lot has happened since then. First, my students had thier Christmas show at the end of December. It was quite an ordeal. We rented out a performance hall, and also rented costumes for all of the kids. The costumes weren't ideal. My reindeer got good costumes, but my elves got jipped because the supervisors at my school waited too long to try to order the costumes, and all of the cute Christmas ones were taken. The stage was also really awkward for a Christmas show, but what the heck, the kids were cute. The show was two and a half hours long, because there are 16 classes, all of which did about a 10 minute show. My students went 14th. We had to sit and wait in a side hall for 2 hours before it was our turn. The kids were so patient. They kept themselves busy with coloring sheets, books, and a movie. We finally went on and did our show, and the kids were great. I was so proud of all the work that they did memorizing their lines, songs and dances.

I got to be back in Minnesota for about a week. I had a ton of fun, and it was great to see everyone. Highlights were meeting my new second cousin (is that the right family relation title?) Oliver, playing "hockey" with my family, and snowtubing with the neighborhood kids. It was great to be in my home environment, where it is cold and snowy. It was also refreashing to be away from my work for a while. Christmas is always such a magical time, and they really don't have the same feeling here in Korea.

I have been back at work for a week now. We have new director, and she seems really nice. The tension has gone down in the staff room, but there will always be a division.

I had an interview this week with an international school. This time it was with an American, but he was at least 95 years old. I like the school, but I'm not sure about the area that it is in. I really enjoy being away from the city, near parks and mountains. Probably any international school that I end up working at will be in the city.

I had to include this picture on the left of Monica. We were decorating cupcakes. This is by far the cutest picture that I have of her.

One quote worth mentioning from this week. My partner teacher is teaching my kids about music, and this week the learned about hip-hop. I glanced at their homework as I was collecting it. One of the questions was something like "write the words to your own hip-hop song." One of my kids wrote one line: "My mama don't raise no fool."