Day 424-Seollal and Valentine's Day

Feb 14 Sunday

Two holidays in one day. Seollal is the big family holiday. My part of Seoul was really quiet today. Tons of things were closed. Even E-Mart was closed. Kimbab Heaven was open.

I bet Valentine's wasn't so big this year. If you are spending time with your family in your hometown then you dont have time to spend with your significant other esp if you live in different hometowns. Here's a good comparison: What if Valentine's Day and Christmas happened on the same day? Christmas would be more important. That could never happen but I'm trying to make a point of how Seollal is more important.

Valentine's Day in South Korea is different from America. In America girls usually expect chocolates/flowers from their man. In SK, the girls are suppose to give chocolates to the boys. In March, on white day, the men reciprocate. Then if you didn't receive anything on either day you get together with other singles and eat black noodles together on black day in April. All of these holidays are on the 14th of the month.

I slept half of the day away. I finally woke up around 5pm after going to bed at nearly 5am.

I ate dinner at Kimbap Heaven. I wanted to eat at Mcdonalds but it was closed. Lotteria was also closed. Kimbap Heaven never closes. Its open everyday 24 hours.

I watched "The Invention of Lying." Very weird movie. I'd say 3 stars or that might be a bit generous! They live in a world where telling the truth is all they know. I liked the slogan for Pepsi. It made me laugh because its so true for me. Pepsi: when there's no coke. (yes, i prefer coke!) Everyone tells the truth until one day one man tells a lie and then things escalate out of control. He just keeps telling more lies.

Well that's all for today. Tomorrow I have another day to rest! I'll sleep in although not as long. I want to go out and buy souveniers for myself and my family.

I like this ring....

I want to get married someday...Where is he?

I'm not even ready to date right now..I feel like I've let myself go...why would the type of guy that I like even want to be seen with me? It would take a very special man to actually want to date me right now. I'm just stating the harsh truth. I'm just saying its no surprise as to why I am single.

anyway I was reading an article about the sparkliest engagement rings and I found my new favorite...its only $950 dollars...which is actually a bargain for who ever wants to marry me...2 months salary is the "normal" amount for a ring, right?...even if he makes only $20,000 thats over $3,000 he "should" spend....so if he gets the ring I want he can save a lot of money! I don't care about fancy things. Heck I dont even care about diamonds. I love Sapphires because I love blue.

Here's a picture:

Seollal Migration Gets Underway

Buses and vehicles carrying millions of homebound travelers clogged major roads linking Seoul and rural towns Friday as the Lunar New Year, the country's biggest holiday, falls on Sunday.

With 3.6 million people expected to move in and out of the capital ahead of the holiday that continues through Monday, virtually all trains, planes, buses and highways bound from Seoul were packed with crowds from Friday morning.

Nationwide, an estimated 22.45 million people are expected to be on the move across the country for the three-day holiday. The number is up about 10 percent from the figure last year. The Korea Highway Corporation said more than 360,000 cars and buses drove out of the bustling capital of 12 million and a higher traffic volume is expected on Saturday.

The Lunar New Year, or "Seollal" in Korean, which begins Sunday, is the most celebrated day in the traditional Chinese calendar and New Year-related travel is the largest annual migration in the country.

The Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) asked drivers in Gangwon Province to exercise particular caution. Nearly 80 centimeters of snow has covered roads passing through mountainous areas in the province over the past few days and more snowfall is expected during the holiday, the KMA said.

Other cities in the province, including Sokcho and Donghae, were also blanketed with some 30 centimeters of snowfall, it added.

"Many parts of the roads there will turn icy with the mercury forecast to drop below zero during the holiday," the KMA said in a statement. "Other cities in the middle parts of the peninsula will have snow, but not that much."

Day 423

February 13 Saturday

Today is the beginning of Seollnal (Korean New Year)...Look under 'south korean holidays' on my labels and I have a post about Lunar New Year.

Today I met up with the girl I met at McDonalds. One of her friends also came along. 2 more people joined us later in the day.

We started out in Insadong. We read about this cafe that was decorated like a train. The girl who was with me can actually carry on a conversation in Korean so she asked a man at a store for directions. The cafe no longer existed. bummer. It looked like a really neat place. So we walked around Insadong for a little while. There were lots of people there. We ended up going to a cafe called "Wednesday". They drank tea and we had some snacks. I'm not a tea person so I didn't get anything.

Then we decided to go to Dongdaemun market. We walked around there for a little while. The girl who joined us was looking for sunglasses at the market. She didn't find any at Dongdaemun. Dongdaemun was also crowded.

Then we caught a cab to Myeongdong. It was also crowded. We stopped at Dunkin Donuts for a snack and met up with 2 other people. Then we went to eat dinner at a Japanese restaurant. Me and the girl from my neighborhood split a dish of chicken cutlet. It was good. We stayed in the restaurant for a long time talking. Then we went into a shopping center and stayed there for a little while.

Then we all headed home. So today we went to 3 shopping districts in Seoul. Outdoor markets. I didn't buy anything. I only bought food and snacks.

I still need to get souveniers for my family and myself. I may try to do that on Monday.

Day 422

Friday February 12

We had more snow today. I think thats like the 5th snow this year. One big snow. The rest were small. It didn't really accumulate. It barely covered the ground.

Before my first class my youngest student gave me a gift. It's a nice gift set. It has shower gel, soap and lotion.

My first class was good. The newspaper tests took a long time to do. Then I gave them their spelling test. The youngest boy made a 90 and the girl made a 50. The new student couldn't remember how to spell the words so I told him to study and I'll let him take it again on Wednesday. We only covered one page in our book today.

My 2nd class was good. It was our newspaper class. When I walked in they were all begging "me first, me first". I did it the fair way today. I put everyone's name on a sheet of paper and let the students draw a name. Our first article was about a dog. Of course, someone said the dog looked delicious. (they actually eat dog in South Korea). One of the questions was "where is the dog from" (it was from Italy). One of my students said Germany. I told him that was wrong and he told me 'its a German Shepherd'.haha. yeah, but he's from Italy! I had mixed responses about the English teaching robots. Most of the class wanted to learn from a robot because its fun, interesting, exciting and amazing. One said he wanted to learn from a robot so he could make it have an error. Then one boy had a great answer. He said he didn't want to learn from a robot because then Americans wouldn't have jobs. He's smart. He's concerned about people losing their jobs. One of the students said he wanted to pour water on the robot's head so he could watch it blow up. haha. my kids are crazy! They all thought the insect candy was gross and the girl in the picture was crazy.

My 2nd class was pretty good. It was also a newspaper class. Out of all the students only one boy said that the insect candy looked yummy. He actually wants to try it. All the other students in all my classes think its gross. The girl in my class said she wanted to learn English from the robot because robots don't hit students. Near the end of class the boy was looking at my computer and clicking on random things. I showed him google Earth. he thought that was cool.

I played around with Google Earth during my break. It's really neat. Some of the places are detailed. You can see places of interest and zoom down to street level and actually see people. Its not in real time though. Its preloaded images that were taken using a camera.

My last class was on their bad behavior again. First I gave them the newspaper test. Some of them were just sitting there carrying on a conversation and ignoring the test in front of them. I gave one student a zero because she thought it was funny to mark every single answer. I kept begging her to do her test so she just marked every answer.THen we reviewed for our test. During review one of the students just got up and left class. She was gone for a long time. Then 2 other boys just got up and walked out. They were copying her. Then we took our test. They were being loud and copying papers and calling out answers. Then we went over new words and half of them weren't paying attention. They all did pretty bad on the test. It was easy too. Words like pizza, salad, lemonade, popcorn, juice, gifts, party hats, girls, boys, balloons, cards. During the test one boy asked me how to spell 'cone' as in ice cream cone. It wasn't on the test so I told him. Then he thanked me because I gave him the ending letters to 'popcorn'. Then I informed him it was 'popcorn' not 'popcone'. Then one of the other students spells it out for him.

I got to leave school at 8:45pm.

3 day weekend!! (for Lunar New Year)

9 school days left...only 2 weeks in Korea....wow!

Day 421

Thursday Feb 11

yeah this one is late...sometimes blogging seems like such a chore..

Got up bright and early for my dentist appt. at 10am. It was snowing outside. It was just a wet mess. The sidewalks were slippery. (There was no accumulation.just a slippery mess). She was going to start on the easy cavity today. When she checked it out she said I’d have to have a root canal on that one too. She started it today. I still have 3 or 4 more visits.

When I came to school the Korean teacher asked me if I had lunch yet. I hadn’t. They wanted me to join them at a Chinese restaurant. We had some pork. It was good. We also had jjajangmyeon. It was also good.

My first class was not good. They were way too quiet. I’d ask a question and then wait a long time for the answer. No one wanted to answer. Finally one student said the answer. She’s the only one who was participating. The rest were just copying what I wrote on the board. They all read when I asked them to but they were quiet the rest of the time.

Second was just a normal day in that class. We went over a writing lesson using go, went, was, were and writing a story. boys were loud all during class. I let one boy go to the bathroom and then everyone jumped up and left the room. I have to beg the boys to do their work. I walk around the class to make sure they are doing it. If I don't check on them, they won't do it. I also did a short review for their test next week. Today we finished our writing book.

My 3rd class was with the first group that too quiet during writing class. They finally woke up! The articles go fast in that class and we always have free time. We rarely have free time in the other classes. One of our topics was about robots teaching English. I had mixed responses. 2 students said they didn’t want to learn with robots because they cant answer all their questions. A few people said yes because its amazing, accurate, and interesting. They were shocked at the insect candy. I showed the picture of a girl eating insect candy and one boy said “what the hell?” and a girl said “she’s crazy”.

In my last class we had a writing lesson about strong endings and descriptions. Then we had some free time.

I watched last nights episode of "American Idol." It was group day in Hollywood week.
Big mike has got some big man boobs (he is a personal trainer). There was so much drama on group day! Some groups were having a lot of trouble working together. They still haven't shown any clips of the Korean guy singing. He made it past group round, but they like to spotlight certian people and keep showing those people over and over. Some people get no exposure. A lot of groups did horrible on "Sweet Escape". They shouldn't have tried that song!

My school gave us a gift for Lunar New Year. Oh my. Another big box of pears. What the heck am I going to do with a big box of pears? I don't even like pears!

Day 420

Wednesday Feb 10

My first class was my newspaper class with the lowest level. Our first article was about Vancouver. As soon as I said Vancouver the youngest student started talking about the olympics. We had a good class. We covered 5 articles. They had a little trouble finding the answers today so I had to help them out.

My 2nd class was good. When I went in class everyone was ready for their speaking test. On Monday I told them the test was on a wednesday. They were asking me about it. I told them it was on Wednesday. They told me today was wednesday. No, next wednesday. We did a writing lesson on dialouge and part of a story. They did good on the material. After class I was helping one of the students with her vocabulary. She was telling me how good my English was. hehe. My English should be good. Its my first language. 2 boys in the class were trying to flatter me hoping I'd end class early. They were asking me what page we would finish on. I always say I dont know because it depends on how much we can cover in class. Then they were saying things like "youre beautiful", "youre tall". silly stuff. Then one of the girls said they were lying. haha.

We also had a writing lesson in my 3rd class. We talked about is, am, are, was, were, go, went, past tense verbs. We finished the book today. One of my students told me that he hurt his thumb so I wrote the answers for him because he said he couldn't hold the pencil. They did a good job on the material.

My last class was back to having bad behavior. They were asking for a game, but I told them they had to be good and we might have a game. Well only one person read all the time. The rest only read sometimes. They weren't listening. They were talking while I was talking and while they should have been listening to the recording. So when I was talking I had to talk over them. One of the girls who was actually paying attention kept asking me to hurry, but Id keep stopping because I wanted the whole class to participate. One girl kept texting someone during my class.
They kept getting out of their seat to throw things in the trash. The boys like to shake up their pepsi and watch it overflow.

I watched last nights episode of American Idol. Hollywood Week. It was too short, They should have done a 2 hour show so we could see more people performing. They only feature a few people so there are so many people that you don't get to see. They keep up with all the people with the big stories. They showed the girl from Tennessee and she didn't make it. They also featured the guy who had cancer. I don't think he made it to the next round. They showed the girl with the 4 brothers with down syndrome. I don't think she made it through either. I wanted to see the Korean guy sing but they didn't feature him on the show. I liked the guy who sang his own version of "Straight Up". He was really good. I like it when they are able to take the song and rearrange it to make it sound different. There was a guy who had a wife going into labor. He did a good job. The next show should be group round. That's always interesting.

I have to get up early tomorrow. I have to get my root canal started at the dentist. My appt is at 10am.

11 more school days....2 more school days till a 3 day weekend!! (This weekend is a holiday--Lunar New Year) I get Monday off from school!

bikini jeans? What the heck?

I'm glad I don't keep up with fashion. I wouldn't wear most of it! I was on facebook and an ad caught my eye. 'bikini jeans'. I was wondering 'what the heck are bikini jeans?'

what's the fascination with low rise jeans?

well I went to the site.




Really? Who would wear these?