My name is Kim Yuna

I've realized over the past couple of days that this sneaky little bad mood that keeps creeping up on me is not a stage of culture shock but the result of having to go to a silly training session for the last three weeks after school. At times, I must admit it was kind of fun, but only because we were all completely delirious. Luckily though, today was the last day and I have the most hilarious students on earth that can make even the most sleep deprived weeks fun:)

This week my second graders were doing a lesson where we were talking about what an appropriate response is when someone makes a statement that you don't necessarily believe. I was aiming for them to respond with the usual "Really?" or "Are you sure?" So I put up 3 examples on the board and the last one read "My name is Kim Yuna" (the Korean figure skater-if you don't know who this is then don't come to Korea. It's a serious crime) and in their groups they were supposed to come up with a response. So I give them a couple minutes and go around to the different groups and when I finally get to Crazy Minji's group, who is my one of my favorites, she stands up and says "You lying son of a (insert female dog)" and is totally straight faced. Now Crazy Minji's name is actually Minji but all of the girls call her Crazy Minji because she is the most hilarious kid on earth. Two weeks ago, we were both walking down to the subway but going different directions and we hear the train coming so we both start sprinting down the stairs because we know it's for one of us and the whole way she's yelling "OH MY GOT! OH MY GOT!" and I was cracking up because she had no clue what she was really saying. Of course, it was my train so I jumped on pumping my fists in the air and say "I win!" to which she replies "Ashleigh Teacher you suck!" Normally if one of my students told me I sucked or said I was a lying SOB I would throw them out a window, but these kids have no clue what they're saying and they are SO wonderful, so all you can do is smile and kindly correct them...or laugh hysterically like I did and nearly wet your pants.

I finally uploaded some pics from my schools, too!

I don't have a lot of resources at my girl's school but we do have a sweet track and a turf field...PLU is in desperate need of one of these.



Some of my students...one may or may not be Crazy Minji and I didn't even take this picture...I found it on my camera when I uploaded pictures...


Today a bunch of the boys came in to hang out during lunch and asked me to put on music, so I played Lady Gaga for them on Youtube and they had a 30 minute long dance party. So funny:)


My saweet classroom at the boy's school that also doubles as a dance club.



The past couple days it's really started to set in how much I miss my family and close friends. I think that mostly I just miss having people around me that know me. It's different when you have a small circle of people out of an entire country that you can actually converse with, and none of those people really know you all that well. Granted, I think I'm going to come out of this experience with some awesome friendships. But, it's different when everyone's only, for the most part, known each other for 2 months because I feel like in a way that I can't really let the insane side of me out that I do around my best friends and I can't be insane around just anyone...if that makes sense. I'm not sure it does but it does in my head so I'll just leave it at that:)

I will tell you though that I'm thankful that I'm not a pig or a cow. I walk by this sign on my way to and from school everyday and I just feel so sorry for the cows and pigs out there. I did eat almost an entire cow for dinner tonight, and I don't regret it one bit, but I do feel sorry for them when we can't atleast give them a small amount of dignity and respect by not posting before and after pics on buildings. Now I feel like I need to add pigs and cows to the same apology list that dogs and thrashing octopus/barf bombs are on.


Speaking of barf bombs, I'm pretty ticked off at Jennifer Love Hewitt right now. I have 2 channels that I actually watch: Discovery and Fox. Fox used to play NCIS here at 10 every night and the past 3 nights they've been playing her stupid show called the Ghost Whisperer or something weird like that. And it's the most horrible show on earth! I don't understand why Korea is doing this to me. She should have stopped with I Know What You Did Last Summer...even though it actually did kind of scare me a teeny bit.