the cutter

deery-lou.
previously on the e-list…

this is officially my first post of the new year. a lot has happened since my last post. the most significant is that i moved into my new fabulous pad. more on that and other things later. this post is strictly for christmas photos. i finally got around to uploading and am now ready to share with all. here's a sampling…













hope you all had a wonderful new year.

more photos here

some videos of miss morgan. one is of her riding a bike, the other at the beach.





stay gold & be well

angeles

deery-lou.
previously on the e-list…

this past week has been somewhat of an emotional roller coaster for me. mostly due to the apartment hunting. i guess narrowing your options down to a specific neighborhood has its drawbacks. there's the limited postings or the never call you back scenarios. i think i can finally see the light at the end. there's a possible prospect on the horizon and hopefully by the end of the week i'll know for sure. keep your fingers crossed for me.

saturday it rained all day. i met up with adawg which was nice since we haven't had any one on one time since my return. we grabbed lunch at a vietnamese restaurant then i took her to my favorite shop on clement street. from there we ventured on to my favorite neighborhood coffee spot. it was great to play catch up. she always has a way of making me smile. i spent the rest of the weekend inside uploading three years of photos to flickr. damn, that sure is a lengthy process. it is fun to revisit my days in korea and beyond. all righty…time to upload some more.

stay gold & be well…

alone in the grass

deery-lou.
previously on the e-list…

i finally got around to getting some film developed that was taken in vietnam and korea.
here's a sampling…

sunflowers & buildings

k-pop poster

check out the vietnam shots here
some shots of my students here
and some of my peeps here

stay gold & be well…

not your bottle

deery-lou.
so i think i had a date this week. hehe. it was with a seven year old girl, sarah. she's not one of my students but she decided to eat lunch with me. she was the only student in my classroom. when i sat down she decided to move right next to me. she asked me all sorts of questions. she loves salad. i think she went back for thirds. she thought everything was yummy. even the potatoes with tiny fish. i had to pass on that one. i played some music during lunch…it was kristin hersh. she likes music, too. we were later joined by elizabeth, one of the korean teachers. she told me that sarah keeps talking about me at home. i'm not quite sure, mostly due to the translation, but i think sarah has been making snacks for me. i have yet to see any of these so called snacks yet.hehe. every time i see sarah she is always saying hi and hugging me. kids are so cute.

friday we celebrated the march birthdays. we had three birthday kids: heather, andy, and esther. the morning was spent singing songs, passing out presents, and eating cake and snacks. needless to say the rest of the day was quite unproductive. i had a little dance party with one of my classes. every time i stopped the music they had to freeze. i was hoping this would counteract all the sugar. i think it only made it worse. they seemed to have a blast even though ethan teacher was worn out. next friday we are having an easter celebration. i'm hoping for an easter egg hunt. we'll see if that happens.

here are a few shots from the birthday party. i only got three cuz my battery died. hmmm. me thinks its time to replace it.

heather, esther, & andy

esther

me & caleb

stay gold & be well…

the have nots

o-town gang

deery-lou.
didn't take a whole lot of photos during my brief visit to the states. my mind was clearly on something else. but here are the few i did manage to take:

click here for florida pix

stay gold & be well…

song of the nile

deery-lou.
*sniff. sniff. there is no movie review today. i was at school last night until 11:30 pm cleaning. we had an open house of sorts for our new kindergarten this morning. which meant a mad dash of cleaning last night. most of the teachers stuck around to help. it seems we have two special girls [sadly both foreigners] who feel they just don't have to help. i actually had to clean one of their classrooms. it looked more like a storage room then classroom. i'm still trying to figure out how one uses a whiteboard when their desk is pushed directly in front of it. hmmmm, they don't. can't say i was really surprised by their actions. these girls seem to afflicted with the me syndrome. but enough of them for now—i do have a great epic post about them that will be coming soon. its a work in progress since there is just so much to say on the matter.

cell block & flag

so lets back up a few days. sunday i spent my last outing in korea with bc. it seemed only fitting that she choose the prison. nothing like death and imprisonment before saying goodbye. i was a bit underwhelmed by it. after visting auschwitz nothing else quite compares. korea's prison camp reminded me of alcatraz sans the island and ferry that took you there. i couldn't really be bothered to read any of the signs. i let bc do that. with her around it's like having my own walking/talking cliff notes. without her i will be completely lost. at least when visiting historical sites. we spent the next hour in kyobi bookstore where i headed to hot trax to buy a cd—same old story. the ever so helpful princess had found it for me. from there we ventured to our favorite restaurant in insadong. the name of which escapes me. perhaps that's because i don't know it. we chowed on a korean pancake and various side dishes. we asked the waiter to cut our kimchi since none of us have mastered the fine art of breaking apart kimchi with chopsticks. with full bellies we went to a wine cafe for one final drink. bc and i bid our farewell on the train. actually we had a bit of confusion about how long we would be on the train together. we stood there looking at each other as the train door shut between us. from the platform i waved goodbye as bc headed down the tracks toward home.

prison photos here

stay gold & be well…

holy moly

deery-lou.
friday and saturday was spent at ski camp with school. we had 25 students that went. overall the students were well behaved until we got to the hotel. then the boys were all hell driven. the boys rooms smelled like rotten feet so i made them wash their feet. afterwards it was orange fights, pillow fights, and all around craziness until the movie. i had one boy try to tell me that bedtime wasn't until 11pm. i told him nice try but he was going to bed now since we had to get up early. i only had to check in on them once after that. they actually went down without any problems. the teachers spent the rest of the night eating fried chicken and drinking beer. can't beat that. i spent my time at ski camp interviewing new teachers. good times, good times.

ace

photos from ski camp are here.

stay gold & be well…

white suckers

deery-lou.
did saturday even happen? i went through the day like a walking zombie. we had our school christmas party and then office party on friday. the children had a great time. the day consisted of a song contest, snacks & a movie, and then gift exchange. it was busy, busy, busy. here are a few photos. i took a lot with my 35mm so i'll post them once i finish the roll.

santa luke & sara

santa luke

santa's helpers singing

more singing

the song contest was priceless. watching my two kinder kids [luke and sara] sing the twelve days of christmas brought tears to my eyes. i felt like a proud parent. they had to memorize two parts each. sara had day 4 and day 9, luke day 5 and day 10. they sang their hearts out. here's a brief video of the whole group singing up to day 5.



my 2 o'clock and 2:40 class sang deck the halls. here they are practicing before the big contest.



my 4:15 class joined another class to sing jingle bell rock. you gotta love their hats.



i didn't get a video of my last two classes. one group sang winterwonder, the other sang a combo of santa claus is coming to town and i'm getting nothing for christmas. the group singing the combo song added a gag routine to their performance. it was quite amusing.

i was completely starved by the time we went to dinner. somehow i managed to get completely tanked at the company party. and the sad thing is i hardly had anything to drink. perhaps it was the moonshine mixed with soju that sent me over the edge. however, i was smart enough to bail out early. i thought the walk home would somber me up but no. i awoke the next morning not even remembering going to bed. i will say this though, i slept like a baby.

tonight i'm off to catch up with some friends for dinner. as for christmas day not sure what i'm doing. at night i have another dinner and in the afternoon bc and i might try to catch a movie. the science of sleep has made it to korea. yeah!!!

merry christmas!

stay gold & be well…