What a week!

What a weird week!

The talent show is next week so it has resulted in many complications.

My 3/4 coteacher forgot that we had class after lunch on Friday which made my class even more disastrous than it usually is, but I won't see that class for like 3 weeks so it's fine. They really wear me down though.

Lots of meetings and my cos running around and me having to do things that are entirely unrelated to teaching Engish but whatever.


I'm just tired a lot. But that's okay!


I made some dope sauce on Monday to eat for the week, which was nice since I haven't been able to cook for myself in a long time. Lots of busy schedules.

Bam, bam, bam

Tuesday was hectic at school with my 6th graders, since all of them are getting to that really difficult point. But I had my 4th graders and I had to catch them up and they were my perfect angels. The lesson was about food, so they kept asking Seunghee to ask me things like if I could eat kimchi. Or eat white kimchi. Or what the English name for ddeokbokki is (it's ddeokbokki) or bulgogi (it's bulgogi) or literally any Korean food name (it's literally any Korean food name). They're adorable and I wish all my students could be like my 4th graders.


Tuesday night I got surprised by being asked to run my study group for my language exchange since my leader wasn't there. I agreed, since why not, and was even more surprised to arrive and meet only 2 of the usually 6 or so group members. The English part went well, then the guy who has been helping my leader with me stayed for the second part of the Korean class with me.


Okay. I've been holding off on this because it's all still pretty new to me and I wasn't sure how much I wanted all my business out there, but here it goes: we're dating.

I have a boyfriend! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

His name is Namho, and he's been the one studying English and Korean with me since I started the language exchange.

Me wearing my boyfriend's (wow that feels weird to say) sweater.

We already have had a funny mishap where we were asked by our language exchange friends when we started dating and he answered "last week" and I answered "yesterday." I thought when I brought the subject up that we were officially dating was our start date, but he seems to think it was the first time we went on a "date" and held hands, which was at the hockey game. My friend said the same thing happened to her with her Korean boyfriend, so I'll have to clear it up with him. Hahaha.

I'm having a lot of fun hanging out with him, and even though the language barrier is hard we both have good reasons to continue learning the other person's language. It's an weird adventure to be on, but I like it.

He plays hockey so he's already a winner.

So Tuesday we went for a drink with his hockey friend who lived in the Philippines so he spoke English really well. So we hung out for a while before he took me home. I'm pretty pleased so far because he takes me to the bus stop near my apartment and doesn't insist on taking me to my apartment but also doesn't just drop me at the subway. He knows I live alone but hasn't mentioned anything untoward, as I have heard of happening here. So I'm feeling pretty good about his chivalry here.

I got home way too late and was tired Wednesday, where I had another weird day at school. It must just be excitement from the talent show. My 6th graders were actually phenomenal that day, and my worst 3rd grade class managed to get through everything. ???????


We had a staff outing on Wednesday after classes. We (the 6th grade teachers) were supposed to go to some flower festival but it was so crowded that we just wandered around World Cup Stadium for a while before getting dinner. It was pretty fun, especially when I can string together sentences in Korean to impress some of the older teachers who don't speak very much English.

Afterwords, I was going to meet Namho. So Jung has known about the whole thing, but none of the other teachers do. Until now. Because I was going the same way as the two sports teachers, we were chatting because I usually go the opposite way. I told them I was meeting a friend when asked why I was going that way, but I cannot keep a straight face or not blush when talking about Namho to anyone so when one teasingly asked if it was a boy my face gave everything away. They thought he was another English teacher and kept thinking of other foreigner things he could be, and I surprised them even more by saying he was Korean. Haha. One of them lamented that he didn't have a girlfriend because "Fall is very good time for boyfriend. It's cold, so..." then proceeded to make hugging motions. Hilarious. Oh well. It was really funny, and I know they texted So Jung about it,since she reported how funny it was to me later.

Our comedy of dating continues.

We saw Martian, which was pretty good if a bit long. Namho fell asleep during it, and I was unaware of the all-star cast so I kept being surprised by who was in the movie. We strolled around outside after the movie then got ice cream before he took me home again.

The only picture I have of us together so far.

Thursday was crazy. We had a fire drill with the school and I was helping So Jung with the 6th grade class, which was a disaster. If there's a fire, we're all dead.

We also got a new student in my worst 6th grade class. He's a baseball player and he transferred so that he could go to the middle school near here. But it makes the already crazy boys in that class even worse. Sigh.

I went to my language exchange again, where my relationship with Namho was outed. I'm not stoked that he just announced it to the two I'm closest to, since he didn't ask if I was okay with it. But I am okay with people knowing. I didn't know if he was. Clearly so far the thing I am learning is that we need to work on communicating. Not that the language thing is an excuse, but it sure takes things to a different level.


Finally it was Friday. This was the day that my co forgot the afternoon class because she was busy with stuff for the talent show, so that was a disaster. Oh well.

I met with Tina for Indian food and felt revitalized, then I went to my Korean class.


Saturday Tina and I checked out the market that was near my apartment. There are a lot of churches around so there was an annual market thing for that. We got some good deals and good food.

Making mandu!

Buying mandu!

Later we tried to go to the beer festival in Itaewon with Lauren, but as there were 2 other festivals happening simultaneously, it did not pan out. We did make it up to Cali Kitchen on my friend's recommendation, which was fabulous. We got the last burger!

Cali Kitchen's decor is really cute. It was like this when he bought the place I guess.

Dat last burger doeeee

Me enjoying my burger and time.

I left Lauren and Tina to go meet up with Namho again. Incidentally there was a beer festival in Sinchon as well. We passed on that in favor of a smaller bar, and we just sat and talked for a while.

I went to Tina's and slept there for my one shot at sleeping in for the week. Her friends, Liz, Casey, and Andrea, skyped her so I joined in for that before we headed to dance class.

This week we revisited an old favorite, Big Bang's "Bang Bang Bang" since so many people had wanted to learn it but hadn't gotten the chance, plus we have new people.

I thought it would be easier since I already knew the dance and have been doing it with my students, but it turned out to be a lot more exhausting since I could do the moves better than the classes where I am just learning the dance. Grace, Tina, and I had a lot of fun messing around, but I also felt that going through the dance slowly again helped me get a lot better at it. Good for when I have to run it with my students for the talent show!


I'm pretty tired and currently dealing with my washing machine continually having an error during the spin cycle so my blanket is soaking wet. Guess I'll go deal with that!

This week I have no clue what's going on with my classes since the talent show will screw up everything.

Then I have the show and the teacher trip to look forward to! Just gotta keep on keeping on.


Til next time!