Graduation

Today was officially the end of the school year for our kindergarten students.  We have been with them for a whole year now and it's hard to believe how much they have learned and grown in a year.  Tonight was the graduation performance for the kindergartners who will start elementary school on Monday.  All of Eric's seven students graduated along with two other classes of students as well.  They had been practicing so hard for their graduation performance.  They sang a couple songs and even performed a Snow White play.  I was the emcee, a bit interesting when your audience doesn't understand much or any English!  Fortunately, one of the Korean teachers was also an emcee so I just had to wait for my questions or jokes to be translated before the audience responded.  Overall it was a fun event and everyone seemed to think it went pretty well.  It's just so hard to believe we have been teaching the kids for a whole year already!! And to try and remember what they were like a year ago and how much they have grown since then is amazing!

Update:  As I mentioned before, we made the difficult decision to leave the private academy we have worked at for our first year, and look for other positions.  It was a hard decision to make when thinking about the kids that we have built relationships with over the last year, but due to the management we felt like we had no choice.  However, it has been quite a difficult process of trying to have our visas transferred to new jobs.  The last two weeks have probably been the most exhausting and challenging we have had in the last year.  As foreigners who are here on a working visa, we cannot just quit our jobs and start a new one the next day.  Our visa is only valid if we are working for the place that is sponsoring it and you can only get a new sponsor for your visa if your current workplace allows it by giving you the necessary legal documents.  Needless to say, it was a long and exhausting process but we think the end may be in sight!  In fact, Eric will be starting a new job on Monday!  He took a position as a part time kindergarten English teacher and will also be doing some private lessons on the side (legally).  My situation is a bit more difficult (more details to come later once everything is resolved).  I have been told I need to work one more week at my current job and then will be given the paperwork I need to start a new job.  I have accepted a position at a public elementary school where I will teach third and fourth grade English.  The plan is for me to start there the second week of March.

So in the end, it looks like our second year here in Korea will be a bit different than the first but we are very excited to see everything that comes during our last twelve months abroad.  We promise to keep the news and pictures coming!

Since I was the emcee and Eric was busy helping the kids backstage we weren't able to get a lot of pictures during the graduation performance.  We do have several from the Snow White play though so here a few...

And here's us before graduation.  Eric ordered a couple suits recently and wanted to show them off for graduation :)

Finally Friday

I know it's been quite a while since I wrote anything so I guess I better write something now.  We've actually had a pretty busy few days this week and are feeling quite exhausted now that Friday night has finally come.  Things at our school have changed quite drastically and quickly in the past two weeks.  This has meant that on top of our 9 hour days at work, we have been using any extra time to take care of the issues that have arisen.  We will not go into details until all issues have been resolved, but there are likely to be some changes coming for us in the next couple weeks or months.  We are, of course, still planning to stay in Korea until March of 2014 and I have started counting down the weeks until I get to head home for a visit at the end of April!  :)

We are finally going to be getting a normal sized refrigerator tomorrow!  We decided the miniature one was just not cutting it anymore and in the long run it would save us money if we were able to stock up on freezer items and such when we go to a market with a good deal.  The only part we haven't figured out yet is how the two of us will be getting it up the stairs to the 5th floor...  We'll be sure to let you know how that goes. 

We got some surprise snow during the night last night.  Fortunately it was above freezing today so it's pretty much all gone.  Actually, it's supposed to get above freezing for the next ten days!  It's been a long and cold 4+ months but maybe spring is finally coming!

 Laura and Emily found a bunch of Jenga blocks in the gym one day and started playing the game all on their own!

Sometimes after lunch the kids get to watch a movie.  Tommy is generally scared of the movie and this is how he looks during the scary parts- fingers in the ears and eyes buried in Eric Teacher's back.

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!  Yes we are still that cheesy couple that enjoys the excuse of celebrating Valentine's Day, though we did give up on going out to dinner on the exact day a couple years ago.  In Korea Valentine's Day is celebrated a bit differently.  For one thing it's pretty much strictly celebrated by couples.  There are no valentine parties at school or little boxes of valentine cards for kids to hand out. 
Also, if you go out to a nice restaurant on Valentine's Day you will pay close to double the regular price.  Actually, Valentine's Day is celebrated by the girl buying the guy chocolate for Valentine's Day.  Not the other way around.  There is another holiday, White Day, on March 14 which is the exact opposite of Valentine's Day.  On White Day the guy buys the girl flowers, chocolate, etc.  I thought America was the only country that liked an excuse for cheesy, commercialized holidays but I guess Korea has a couple on a small scale as well.  Anyway, Eric loved the idea of me having to give him chocolate and him not having to return the favor until a month later.  He seemed pretty serious to me.  Last night I decided to make a batch of red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting since they are his favorite (and sounded delicious to me too!).  They turned out pretty amazing we both thought, so I think I will have to make them again!  And I guess he wasn't serious about the whole White Day thing because he still managed to surprise me with flowers and chocolate (not easy to do since we live and work together!), going completely against the Korean tradition!  I also picked up some candy for the kids at work even though they don't know much about Valentine's Day they got chocolate and that's all they care about!

 Delicious red velvet cupcakes for Eric...

 Hello Kitty chocolate bars for the kindies...

 And flowers and chocolate for me!

   We didn't get to have a Valentine's party at work but we did have our February birthday party.  Baby Anthony will finally turn 3 this month!

Happy Lunar New Year

This weekend was the Lunar New Year, or Chinese New Year as most people refer to it at home.  In Korea it is called Seollal and is celebrated as a very traditional holiday, much like the Chuseok (Thanksgiving) holiday in the fall.  Everyone returns to their hometown in the countryside, leaving Seoul much less busy than normal.  While with their families, Koreans wear the traditional clothing, hanbok, bow to the elders, eat a lot of food, and remember their ancestors.  They also take gifts with them when they go to their hometown.  Usually things like gift boxes of spam or shampoo, same as Chuseok.  We were hoping there would be some traditional celebrations to celebrate the holiday but there actually wasn't too much going on in the city since most people go to the countryside.  We heard that some of the more populated provinces and cities in the countryside will have big parades with the dragons like you see in pictures from China during this New Year, but in the city there wasn't really too much happening.  That was okay though because the best part of the Lunar New Year for us was an extra day off :)  Working in Korea means we don't get many days off outside of our two day weekend.  For some reason this extra day off has been especially welcoming to us and I'm pretty sure every weekend should be three days!  The national holidays in Korea seem to come in clumps, we will have another three day weekend the week after next, and then we will go a few months without any extra days off.  It has been so nice to be able to relax for the better part of three whole days this weekend.  Having a much more comfortable place to live has made our weekends much more relaxing and welcoming, though they also feel much shorter!  That's why our weekend consisted mostly of some crocheting for me, reading, video games and movies.  In honor of Valentine's Day this week we also went to a nice buffet restaurant we had been wanting to try, which was delicious (especially the waffle bar) and went for a walk in a snowy park to take some pictures (will be uploaded soon).  I even almost made it through an entire weekend of 3 days without baking anything.  Almost.  But then Eric left me alone to go see a movie with some friends this afternoon and I kept seeing some bananas that were starting to turn a bit brown in the fruit bowl.... So yes there's currently a loaf of banana oatmeal bread in the oven.  This weekend I finally got around to buying a mixer so I kind of needed to try it out anyway.  I also have plans for a Valentine's dessert to make for Eric this week since he insists on celebrating Valentine's Day the Korean way.  More to come on the way Koreans celebrate Valentine's Day later this week....

 Some of my students wearing hanbok at our Seollal party a couple weeks ago

Some students bowing in their traditional clothes.  Boys bow differently than girls.  On Seollal they bow to their elders and then receive money to represent good luck for the next year.

 We even found hanbok for dogs!!

                        
An example of Seollal gift set.  Twelve cans of spam for $50.  It did come in a nice wood box though...

And lastly some snow in the park.  Notice how there are no people in this picture.  We have found it to be pretty rare to get a picture with no people in it while in Seoul!

Butterfinger Pancakes and Snow

Since we didn't get our American style breakfast last weekend we decided it was a must this weekend.  Because there was a crazy long wait when we tried to go mid-day last weekend, we decided we would be willing to sacrifice one of our weekend mornings of sleep to get up early for some good breakfast at Butterfinger Pancakes, and hopefully beat the rush.  So we set the alarm for Sunday morning at 7am and apparently it worked because there were plenty of empty tables when we got there shortly after 8:00.  I definitely enjoyed my Belgium waffle and Eric really enjoyed his corned beef and hash.  It was the first time I got myself a waffle in Korea and I sure enjoyed every bite.  Waffles are pretty easy to come by in Seoul.  They sell them at street carts and in many subway stations but I've never stopped to try one before.  I guess I've just always wanted to be able to sit down and eat it at a restaurant or at home rather than on the street or subway.  This place was definitely a good place to get one though, and they had countless other American breakfast items to choose from also!  We don't think it will be worth getting up that early on a Sunday morning very often, but we will for sure be going back at some point!  Feeling a bit overly full from our breakfast outing we came home and took a nap.  We also had a coworker friend come over Sunday afternoon for some Kraft macaroni and cheese and home baked brownies.  So I guess Sunday was basically a day full of American style food :)

We also got the first snow of February this weekend.  It started snowing early Sunday evening and must not have stopped until morning because we woke up to a good 5-6 inches of snow this morning.  As we were walking to work there were a lot of people outside sweeping and shoveling the snow off the roads (even the alley road that we live on).  This was the first time we had seen so many people out trying to clear the snow off to the side.  It warmed up to slightly above freezing pretty quick though making some of it turn very slushy very quickly.  We also saw an old Korean guy almost get buried in an avalanche of snow that slid off the roof of a building as we was sweeping the street!  Of course by the time we were walking home tonight it had all become ice so whatever was not cleared from the road that we walk on was a nice place to ice skate.

 

The menu was HUGE!

 

My yummy waffle!   The only thing it needed were more strawberries...

Lots of snow again!