No Electricity=No Rice

Dear Lina,
You are such a little blessing. You're my favorite student..don't tell anyone.

It's already 12:30 a.m. and I am just starting this blog. I was going to do it tomorrow, BUT I figured I am awake now because maybe the coke I drank 2 hours ago won't let me fall asleep or I'm coming down with round 2 of sickness, or the indie film I just watched made me feel weird and so I felt the need to watch a little of Baby Mama to give me some laughs so now I'm all giggles, or I'm still jet lagged (unlikely).

Well, I guess I'll pick up from the last Thursday in December after my sister left. I had a class in the morning so I didn't get to see her off at the bus station, but my friend Elizabeth was able to take her..so thankful. I got to class and as I was waiting for the elevator with my students, my adult Chinese student asks if I was sad my sister was leaving and I said, "yeah, a little." and she says, "This okay, you have us." It was pretty precious.

Later that day, it snowed like nobody's business and it made Gunsan look sooo beautiful. Snow just makes everything just look soooo clean..well, at least for the first day, then it's just a gray slushy mess. Yogita, Jemal and I roughed the snow storm like any good American. Jemal took me to the cell phone place because my phone wouldn't turn on. The Korean man tested it out and says a few times and probably with his arms in an "x" shape, "phone die, phone die." So, that was that..fortunately I got a new used one and am back on track.

We had Friday off, so Thursday was kind of a fun day for classes. We ended up taking all the younger students outside and had a killer snowball fight. These kids didn't know what hit them. I thought at first I would take it easy on them, but then one of these little goobers nailed one of the other teachers in the face and it was on. I won't lie, I threw a few snowballs a little too fast and a little too hard and yeah, maybe I aimed for the face of the boy who was pelting the little girls with snowballs while they were trying to make an innocent snowman. No, I'm kidding..but I do think they were thoroughly impressed with my ability to catch their extremely packed, oversized snowball and through it right back at them. Please, my neighbors growing up were Mitch and Alex Wakeley, a 10-12 year old boy behind a snow fort chucking snow grenades at me doesn't scare me.

And so, Thursday ended, and we had Friday OFF! I guess it was our winter "vacation." I really didn't do anything too special on Friday, slept over at Elizabeth's apartment, slept in very very late, watched some Free Willy and ended up going on base with some of our Airforce friends and playing racquetball. I think one of my future blogs needs to be about the people who I've become friends with here..they are quite the group..I'll elaborate more in the future. Anyhow, it's always a good time going on base where I love to see diversity, eat American food, read every sign, understand the music and most importantly...eavesdrop and understand.

Friday night was New Year's Eve. The church I'm going to, The Haven, had a New Year's Eve service and so we had church, some snacks, and we prayed for this new year. It was a good time with good people.

The rest of the weekend was just a hang around, play games, and sleep sort of weekend. It was pretty relaxing.

This past week went surprisingly fast. It may be because I found a Korean drama online with English subtitles and I couldn't stop watching this show about this love triangle. And listening to Korean and reading it in English I figure is going to practically make me fluent in Korean. Also, I started the first book my sister gave me for Christmas, Hunger Games....wow, so good. I just finished the first book yesterday...I was so addicted..I would read the book in between classes, which is only a 5 minute break...reading stresses me out. I can't just casually read..I have to finish the thing a day or two after I start it. I'm afraid to start the second one.

Also, I got soooo many new students I think about 8 or 9 new students all together AND I decided I would try to learn their Korean names instead of assigning an English name, so it's making it doubly as hard. However, there is one male student in my class of 16 year olds who was new this week. I tell you what..nothing shuts up two chatty 16 year old Korean girls like a goodlooking but quiet 16 year old Korean boy. It's been great getting new students, changes things up a bit. Something funny from this class: I asked them a question from the book about what they think the world would be without electricity. Keep in mind, I asked this to a group of 16 year olds..one girl raises her hand says, "I think it would be bad. There would be no rice."


Lina. She's the sweetest 13 year old Korean girl in all of Korea. I'm confident of that. She's in my 5 oclock class. Her English is really improving and she really loves me for some reason. She always comes early and after I walk out of a class I just finished she runs over to me and grabs my hands and says, "Natalee Teacher..hello!" She always always makes my day better. Here's this little angel:


And lastly, it's 1:15 a.m. and I'm fading quickly. It was New Year's Day last Saturday, so every Korean turned another year old. They don't turn another year on their birthday, every Korean turns another year on Jan. 1. SOOO..if you were born on December 4, such as myself, you would be 1 immediately (because you are 1 years old when you come out of the womb) and several weeks later, you're turning two. Interesting huh?

Well, it's been a pleasure writing this for you all. And I plan to write another one very soon..hopefully tomorrow because this past weekend was one of the most interesting things I've done in my life. I'll give you a clue, I had to sign something that the very first line said, "The visit to ___________ will entail into a hostile area and possibility of injury or death as a direct result of enemy action." So there's a little preview for ya, snack on that :) Keep up those New Year's resolutions people!