neglected blog
oh, this poor blog. so neglected.
ahem. hello. how are you? it was so freaking awesome to see everyone over christmas. i know i missed lots of people. i'm sorry. i will see you in june. the week home flew by. could have used another.
my cousin, andy...
...requested more pictures. so, sir, here you go. ~lol~
photos from the trip home:
mi familia.
a super yum christmas breakfast.
momo and audrey, who is so adorable with the best smile. dude. she is one happy baby.
out for drinks. (most of my photos were blurry. bugger. here are the few clearish ones.)
anyhoo, am back in seoul and it feels good. intensives at work are going well. the hours (8:30-8:00) aren't ideal, but this time they're going by really quickly. i have fantastic classes. ^o^ my first class is the class i adore, with Rah, Jay, Sean, Stephen, Tom, Sally, MinKyung, Paul and everyone. the second class is basic 2 again, but this time most of them already know how to read and the class is much smaller, so i feel like we're making more progress. last class of the day is junior 6, with some of the most generous, strange, funny students i've taught yet. a few photos:
jin, basic 2 (we learned the word "crown" that day, made a quick crown on break)
ashley, basic 2. she's brilliant. can spell just about anything. bonus, every time she gets a word right, she bounces in her chair and goes "yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay" with the gigantic smile below.
l to r. jin, gilbert, ashley, mark, and carson. they're age 10 and 11 korean age (which i think is 8 and 9 western age). they make me howl with laughter every day, especially mark.
aish, i'm so sad this is blurry. mark. isn't he adorable? he fluffed his hair all out and called himself "Einstein." !!!! sheesh. when i was 9 i talked about scooby-doo and voltron. he's smart enough to be another Einstein, too.
carson, gilbert, and mark. they really like making pyramids. and they all know the word pyramid already, except maybe gilbert. he's the youngest, and he primarily spends class eating his eraser, licking his reading book, making evil faces at the teacher, or shrugging his shoulders in the timeless "i don't know what the hell you're saying but i'm gonna smile and chew on pages 20-25 'cuz it's more fun than you" gesture.
mark, gilbert, carson, ashley, jin, and (new today) jason. oh. i. love. them.
junior 6. brian. he's so funny! he loves to talk and make jokes and he has the most infectious laugh. he's got his quiz face on here.
junior 6. a.j. another jokester in this class. he is always either intentionally falling out of his chair, playing with his head gear to the unwaveringly fascinated gaze of his neighbors, or cracking jokes in his utterly unique, spaghetti western meets new zealand meets buckingham palace accent.
i picked up special christmas presents for a couple students that i admired quite a bit. when we all returned to school after christmas, one of them gave me a sweet handpainted dragonfly toy she's made at a school camp. it balances on the end of your finger, just like a real dragonfly. am always playing with it during class, love it.
the other gave me this card and a letter that said she thought i'd like a card better than a gift. dude, i'm keeping this forever, and am going to look at it any time i feel depressed.
am trying to be more positive this time around. i've started calling seoul "home" in my brain. the twin cities are still home, too, no worries. it's a bit strange that i think of here as home, though, when i've done so little to learn about the culture and meet people. bad sara.
at any rate, i'm becoming friends with rod's neighbor, kun hee. she and her sister made me lunch on sunday, and then kun hee and i took her dog for a walk to the Han river park. when we returned, they insisted i return in a few hours to eat dinner as well. this weekend on saturday they've invited me to drive out to incheon to see the sea and eat seafood. i may try natchi this weekend - live baby octopus. or, i may just watch them eat it. ~lol~
photo of dinner at kun hee's --- holy delicious kimchi chigae (they asked me what i like to eat and i mentioned kimchi chigae among other things) and mini kimbap. it took kun hee an hour to chop all of the kimbap ingredients. they're perfect. if i spent an hour on this, they'd be all shapes and sizes and i'd have about a third of the output. from l to r starting with the white pieces, egg whites, carrots, ham, pickled radish, more carrot, green pepper, imitation crab stick, ham, cucumber, fish cake, red pepper, egg yolk (?), and burdock root, with wasabi and soy sauce in the center. you put a little rice on a square of salted seaweed, add assorted sticks o' stuff, fold, dip, and bite. dude. so yummy.
will hopefully post photos of kun hee and her sister soon. they've been in house clothes when i've visited thus far and wouldn't be keen on photos. maybe this weekend.
i am determined to learn enough korean over the next three months to be able to have a basic conversation. it's embarrassing how little i know. it's incredibly frustrating trying to speak with kun hee. i guess it takes making a korean friend to give a much needed swift kick in the slowly-dragging-time-to-learn-a-new-language ass. oi. i am lazy. have access to an online lesson site. time to study. after intensives.
T.I.R.E.D. hope that was enough pics, andy. ~lol~
~s
ahem. hello. how are you? it was so freaking awesome to see everyone over christmas. i know i missed lots of people. i'm sorry. i will see you in june. the week home flew by. could have used another.
my cousin, andy...
...requested more pictures. so, sir, here you go. ~lol~photos from the trip home:
mi familia.
a super yum christmas breakfast.
momo and audrey, who is so adorable with the best smile. dude. she is one happy baby.
out for drinks. (most of my photos were blurry. bugger. here are the few clearish ones.)
anyhoo, am back in seoul and it feels good. intensives at work are going well. the hours (8:30-8:00) aren't ideal, but this time they're going by really quickly. i have fantastic classes. ^o^ my first class is the class i adore, with Rah, Jay, Sean, Stephen, Tom, Sally, MinKyung, Paul and everyone. the second class is basic 2 again, but this time most of them already know how to read and the class is much smaller, so i feel like we're making more progress. last class of the day is junior 6, with some of the most generous, strange, funny students i've taught yet. a few photos:
jin, basic 2 (we learned the word "crown" that day, made a quick crown on break)
ashley, basic 2. she's brilliant. can spell just about anything. bonus, every time she gets a word right, she bounces in her chair and goes "yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay" with the gigantic smile below.
l to r. jin, gilbert, ashley, mark, and carson. they're age 10 and 11 korean age (which i think is 8 and 9 western age). they make me howl with laughter every day, especially mark.
aish, i'm so sad this is blurry. mark. isn't he adorable? he fluffed his hair all out and called himself "Einstein." !!!! sheesh. when i was 9 i talked about scooby-doo and voltron. he's smart enough to be another Einstein, too.
carson, gilbert, and mark. they really like making pyramids. and they all know the word pyramid already, except maybe gilbert. he's the youngest, and he primarily spends class eating his eraser, licking his reading book, making evil faces at the teacher, or shrugging his shoulders in the timeless "i don't know what the hell you're saying but i'm gonna smile and chew on pages 20-25 'cuz it's more fun than you" gesture.
mark, gilbert, carson, ashley, jin, and (new today) jason. oh. i. love. them.
junior 6. brian. he's so funny! he loves to talk and make jokes and he has the most infectious laugh. he's got his quiz face on here.
junior 6. a.j. another jokester in this class. he is always either intentionally falling out of his chair, playing with his head gear to the unwaveringly fascinated gaze of his neighbors, or cracking jokes in his utterly unique, spaghetti western meets new zealand meets buckingham palace accent.
i picked up special christmas presents for a couple students that i admired quite a bit. when we all returned to school after christmas, one of them gave me a sweet handpainted dragonfly toy she's made at a school camp. it balances on the end of your finger, just like a real dragonfly. am always playing with it during class, love it.
the other gave me this card and a letter that said she thought i'd like a card better than a gift. dude, i'm keeping this forever, and am going to look at it any time i feel depressed.
am trying to be more positive this time around. i've started calling seoul "home" in my brain. the twin cities are still home, too, no worries. it's a bit strange that i think of here as home, though, when i've done so little to learn about the culture and meet people. bad sara.
at any rate, i'm becoming friends with rod's neighbor, kun hee. she and her sister made me lunch on sunday, and then kun hee and i took her dog for a walk to the Han river park. when we returned, they insisted i return in a few hours to eat dinner as well. this weekend on saturday they've invited me to drive out to incheon to see the sea and eat seafood. i may try natchi this weekend - live baby octopus. or, i may just watch them eat it. ~lol~
photo of dinner at kun hee's --- holy delicious kimchi chigae (they asked me what i like to eat and i mentioned kimchi chigae among other things) and mini kimbap. it took kun hee an hour to chop all of the kimbap ingredients. they're perfect. if i spent an hour on this, they'd be all shapes and sizes and i'd have about a third of the output. from l to r starting with the white pieces, egg whites, carrots, ham, pickled radish, more carrot, green pepper, imitation crab stick, ham, cucumber, fish cake, red pepper, egg yolk (?), and burdock root, with wasabi and soy sauce in the center. you put a little rice on a square of salted seaweed, add assorted sticks o' stuff, fold, dip, and bite. dude. so yummy.
will hopefully post photos of kun hee and her sister soon. they've been in house clothes when i've visited thus far and wouldn't be keen on photos. maybe this weekend.
i am determined to learn enough korean over the next three months to be able to have a basic conversation. it's embarrassing how little i know. it's incredibly frustrating trying to speak with kun hee. i guess it takes making a korean friend to give a much needed swift kick in the slowly-dragging-time-to-learn-a-new-language ass. oi. i am lazy. have access to an online lesson site. time to study. after intensives.
T.I.R.E.D. hope that was enough pics, andy. ~lol~
~s
posted by smochs at 9:56 PM
5 Comments:
That picture of Adam sent me into hysterics. Well done!
P.S. Looking at Mel? Not as funny. IJS.
Annie, you cow, you're just mad that smochs didn't call you the next Einstein. Don't take it out on me that you're dumb.
Sara, my dear, I'm glad that you're enjoying your classes through the hard schedule. That makes everything easier. One question: how does one drink the soju? Warmed, like sake? Cold, like martoonies? Straight from the bottle, like Jack Daniels??
Take care of yourself!
annie ~ dude, that's my *favorite* photo. he made faces like that all night. looking at mel is never quite as fun 'cuz she doesn't make funny faces, but if both of them looked like that, our heads would explode from laughing.
melinite ~ harshmellow! (~lol~, oi, lame, yes)
soju!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
warmed -- no? dunno. don't think so. try it, see what happens. <_>
room temp -- okay.
cold -- yes.
cold shots mixed with cola or sprite -- yes.
a cold shot dropped into a glass of beer -- yes.
straight shot followed by a chaser of choice -- yes.
straight from the bottle -- only if you're Korean or my Irish co-worker and have the tolerance the size of Jupiter.
^o^
Hey girl - can I get a mailing address for you for the christmas letter which I forgot to give you when you were here? (sheepish grin)
I once spent 5 hours and $75 drinking soju and singing my guts out in a private karaoke room in Koreatown. That's $75 after it was split five ways.
Yep. . .we were drinkin' it straight.
P.S. Moooo
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