Happy Birthday to me

I turned 32 on Saturday. I don't feel old until I actually write the number down (or the kids play their crap music too loud, I eat spicy food, or I drop a stitch in my knitting) and then it's like - boom, you're old. It was very good birthday weekend however and reminds me both why I love living in Korea and why I miss home.

On Friday night, my friend Kyle had a going away party. She has been in Korea for 2 years and decided it was time to go home (with a brief trip around Southeast Asia first). I didn't really tell anyone about my birthday because I feel kind of jerky telling people they should come celebrate me (unless they are good friends or family in which case I remind them on a daily basis due to my awesomeness). A huge group of foreigners and a couple Koreans met at wine bar (the literal hole in the wall bar) to say goodbye. Around 1am my friend Cindy shouted "happy birthday" then other people heard it and spread it around. Kyle got on the microphone, made me go up in front of the room (which I hate) and then made everyone sing me "happy birthday". It was awkward but sweet. I left soon after and went home.

I was woken up on Saturday morning by a call from my brother telling me to get on skype so that we could also add my sister to the conversation. This was extra sweet because it was still Friday night in the US and not technically my birthday so the fact that they remembered to call a day early was nice. We chatted for about 30 minutes (and they attempted to lecture me about my drinking problem which was ironic considering they think drinking a bottle of wine a day is normal), and then two of my cousins joined in the conversation. In total we spent about 2 hours on the computer catching up and sharing internet videos about Saved by the Bell.

After skype, I met up with a group of people from church. They shouted "surprise" at me when I walked into Beans Farm (a brunch place downtown). They bought me some lollipops, earrings and a brownie cake. They also bought me pancakes and coffee! After eating, they lit candles and sang and we ate the cake - it was really good but super chocolaty. Then we went to a coffee shop and talked for a few more hours. We intended to play a board or card game, but it just didn't happen.

Me laughing at someone during "Happy Birthday"

Brownie cake with candles

Konglish (combo Korean/English) on the cake box.

The top of the cake - "Shoot the love"

After coffee, I went home and took a short nap. Then I met up with Liezle, Cindy and 2 new guys. We wanted to play screen golf, which is just like regular golf but you hit at a screen instead of on a course. We hadn't ever done it and wanted to see what it was like, but when we got there it was $20 per person to play and we didn't want to spend that much since none of us are good golfers. We went to a bbq restaurant and had dinner and drinks and talked for awhile. Three other people joined up towards the end and they bought me an ice cream cake. So we lit candles and they sang. When we were almost finished we learned that it was Jon's (new guy) birthday 2 days before, so we added extra candles and sang again.

Soju cheers!

Dinner group (minus Liezle who took the picture)

Baskin Robbins ice cream cake - 4 flavors of ice cream - chocolate, cherry, blue raspberry with poprocks in it and melon. We gave the entire melon section to the waiters because none of us really liked it. Plus we were being all foreigny and taking up a lot of space etc.

Me, Anna and my candle-lit cake

Cake aftermath and Jon's candles. The cake is pretty cool. It comes in a Styrofoam box with dry ice. You tell them how long you need it to stay cool and they add enough dry ice for up to a few hours.

After cake we decided to go play pool. We had a pseudo-tournament of 8 ball. Cindy and I were partners and we sucked pretty bad, but were better than a few others. We played for around an hour or so then went downtown to Beast Bar. Two more people joined in at the bar and we played some darts and danced a little bit. Jon and I also got a free birthday drink.

Me and Cindy at the pool hall (although it's not really a hall). We sucked really bad.

Jon, blurry Dan, me, Cindy, blurry Hyo playing darts. Dan and Cindy were and team and Jon and I were a team. We tied 1 game each.

Then the group (minus one who bailed and he's only 24!) went to Pop Junko. Korea has these places called noraebangs, or singing rooms. I will write another post with more details, but it's basically a karaoke bar with just you and your friends. Pop Junko was built soon after I got here and it looked really nice. I'd been wanting to go for forever, but we never did. I told Liezle around June or July that if we hadn't gone by my birthday, we were going to check it out. So we did. You pay for a group entrance fee which buys you 2 hours of singing. But you also have to buy some food. We ordered chicken. Then Dan told them it was my birthday and they brought us a whole bunch of other food for free, which was really nice. We sang the entire 2 hours including a Disney medley, Wilson Phillips, Backstreet Boys, Bon Jovi and a few other gems. At this point it was almost 5 in the morning, so I decided to go home and sleep.

Sign on the boys' room. The girls' room had a similar one, except not (for obvious reasons).

Chicken. It was really good, kind of tangy. It also has peppers, potatoes, onions and  some other vegetable in it.

Free food - japjae, pappingsu, fried egg with something spicy in it, crackers and edemame. They also brought a bowl of ramen.

Anna, Cindy, me and Emily before the singing really started

Not our room, but another in the building. Each room had a different theme.

Liezle and Cindy belting out what I believe is Green Day.

 On Sunday, I went to church, some people wished my happy belated birthday, then we went to lunch as usual. After lunch I went to Brandon and Jamie's and we played Catan for awhile. Then I went home to write 2 tests that I had to give today. My mom called Sunday night to wrap up my birthday weekend. I am thankful for everyone who called, wrote cards, posted on facebook or joined me in any of the celebrations! Thanks!

Book Club - or how I am returning to being an old person

There is a recent crop of new people to the Jinju area. Around Jan/Feb and then again in March and usually again around September are big turn over times for schools. One of the new people is actually a couple. They took over for some friends of mine who went home but are now coming back to Seoul. Anyway, they both lived in Korea and were just moving to a new city/new job. She participated in a book club in her old area and wanted to see if there was any interest here. I obviously signed up because I am a nerd. Oddly enough, this is my first "real" book club. Her selection of the first book was basically because that's the one her old club was using. She chose "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close". There is now a movie out based on this book.

Our first meeting was 3 weeks ago and we have met once more. We would have met again this past Sunday but so many people were on vacation/out of town that we decided to push it a week. I have enjoyed the meetings so far. It's different for me because none of my usual friends are in the group. Only one girl I actually know is there so far. I do like the conversation and listening to see how other people read the book though. This book isn't really my fav. It's not horrible, but I wouldn't recommend it; at least not at this point. maybe something awesome will happen and I will change this review. Let's hope!

The only thing I'm not liking about book club is our choice for next month's book. We decided to alternate between Fiction and Non-fiction every month. I am fine with that choice as my selection was actually a non-fiction book. Then we vote. The thing I don't really like is that votes of people who don'y come to book club, but are on the facebook link were counted. So we're supposed to real "23 things you didn't know about capitalism". I don't want to read this. I have no interest in the book and I really don't want to discuss/debate/argue about money or politics etc. But at the same time, I feel like a 5 year old saying "I'm taking my ball and going home" if I just skip this book. Then again, should I waste time/money on something I'm not that interested in? Then again, what if I learn something and/or it's actually interesting?

So, thoughts or suggestions on what I should do?

Year of the Dragon

Today was Lunar (aka Chinese) New Year. It is a national holiday in Korea and everyone turns a year older today (instead of their regular birthday, although now I think the "birthday" is on Jan. 1) and visits their families. The holiday is a 3 day holiday, this year from Sunday to Tuesday. That means I got today (Monday) and tomorrow off of work. This is awesome for 2 reasons - 1- I don't have to go to work for 2 days and 2- it's still winter cram session so I don't have to get up early for 2 days either. Woot.

This weekend was both productive and non-productive. On Friday I went to prayer service. Liezle came with me because she was going skiing this weekend and we wouldn't see each other for quite some time, plus she didn't really have anything else to do. We celebrated Lance's birthday afterward with some donuts in lieu of a cake. Then we played 6 person Catan (Liezle stayed and watched for a bit, but left about halfway through because she needed to get up really early on Saturday morning) and chatted until after midnight.

On Saturday, a large group of church people (around 25) went to Samsung buffet for lunch/dinner from 2-4. Dan ate 7 plates of food. After lunch we went back to church and had games night. I ended up playing about 4 or 5 games of "30 Seconds" (a South African game similar to Taboo - I need to see if there is an American version because it's a good game). A huge group of people left around 8 or so and another group of us stayed and played 6 man Cities and Knights again. This time we had 2 brand new people and a girl who has only played twice so it took us almost 4 hours to finish the game. It was soooooo long. After I got home, I stupidly started reading "The Hunger Games" and stayed up until around 5 finishing the book. It was good - easy read, nothing too thinky.

On Sunday I got up and went to church. I tried to be intentionally late so that I would miss the singing portion because while I really enjoy it, I am not supposed to be singing too much with my voice/cold and I feel bad just standing there not singing. I got there mid-way through the first song. I ended up mouthing the words to the next 2 songs and singing quietly to the last one later in the service. After service a group of about 12 of us went to eat at a fast food type place called Mom's Touch. I thought it was a laundromat when I first saw it. After lunch we went and had coffee at this cute place called Tutto. The lady is really sweet but it's funny because she steals Jamie's baby and walks around the place with her. She gave us free food (weird rice cakes and weird rice cakes). The one kind of rice cake was like glue - it's thick and has bean powder sprinkled on it. The other kind is edible - it's puffy rice, but soft, mixed with honey I think. She explained a little to Lance how it was made and told him there is a class at university where you can learn how to do it. She gave him the rest of the box of the puffy rice things. After coffee we went back to Brandon and Jamie's and played Mafia (a card game of sorts) for a long time - until around 1.

Today, I did a load of laundry then met up with Ilani and Lance for coffee and a game of Catan at the coffee shop (Brandon and Jamie came too and played some cards and chatted with us for awhile but left before we had finished). After the game, Lance had to go and meet his wife, so Ilani and I went to Emart and went grocery shopping. I have never seen that store so empty - it was great! After shopping, I went home, did dishes (and broke a sponge thing I bought earlier at Emart - hopefully I can glue it back together, but it cost $2 so if I can't, oh well), watched a couple of shows, called my mom and talked to her for a bit, cleaned my bathroom, watched another show and wrote this post.

Tomorrow I might do another load of laundry, but if I don't, I won't feel too bad about it. Later in the afternoon, I am meeting up with a group of friends/church people to watch "Puss and Boots" - why, I don't really know. Then I am going to meet Cindy and Liezle for dinner to hear all about their weekends and catch up. Then I need to write 2 finals for Thursday. Then it's back to business for the rest of the week.

So, all in all, the year of the dragon started out nicely. Oh, and my boss gave me $50 so that was awesome. Hope the dragon brings y'all a good year!

Resolutions

I've mentioned some of these before, but I have 4 New Year's resolutions.

1 - floss. This was one from last year, which I am proud to say I've kept up with. Flossing is a pain in the keister,
but those new little floss sticks have made this resolution possible.

2 - more posts. This was one I know I talked about before. This post is an example of me trying to keep this one. We'll see how long it lasts. Probably until the new season of shows starts to come out and I am no longer bored on Tuesday evenings.

3 - read the bible in 180 days. My friend Ilani joined a website last year called "read the bible in 90 days". It gives you a reading plan, and the founder of the site checks in with you to monitor your progress. Two other people from the church did it with her and they all enjoyed it. This year, she decided to create her own website called "read the bible in 180 days". She got help from the people who did it in 90, created a reading plan, and does daily updates and weekly check-ins. I have never read the Bible cover to cover and thought it was about time I should. So I'm in my second (possibly 3rd depending on when I actually post this) week of reading. So far I've kept to the schedule (about 30 minutes of reading a night), but the stories are pretty interesting. There is a lot of incest up the Bible, among other things. Our pastor is also available for questions. I'm really going to try this one and as I have 2 people who I'm doing this for (besides myself) I think I have a good shot at it.

4 - break 150 in bowling. My high game so far has been 144. I just need to settle down and focus. And maybe get my own ball (just kidding). I should learn how to spin it, but I have a feeling I would injure myself. This is a throw away resolution, so if it happens, great, if not, I still have fun.

Bowling League strikes again (see what I did there?)

So we've been keeping up with Thursday night bowling. Two weeks ago Mikey did really well. He bowled his personal best of 160-something and also got 4 strikes in a row.

We've added a couple of people, including English John to the mix. He's a really nice guy and I like him a lot. He's been in Jinju for awhile, but he has a girlfriend, plus he often hangs out with a totally different crowd. I've seen him a bunch in the last few weeks and I'm glad I've sort of ended up in his circle of friends (or that he's entered mine). He's also really good at pretty much all sports - darts, pool, bowling. He's not great, but he's good (and much better than most of us). He's on vacation in China right now. He doesn't have a ticket home because you can't buy boat tickets until you're in China. So, he might not get back to Korea in time for school. I'd be freaking out, but he seems ok with it. Oh well.

Here are 3 random pictures.

This is dried fish cake snack sticks. Gross. But sexy!

We went to a Vietnamese place last week after church. I had pineapple fried rice. The best part is, when you finish eating it (it's less than it look because there is no hole in the pineapple half) they take the pineapple back to the kitchen and slice it up for you. Yum!

This guy was hanging out in front of a restaurant while I was on my way to meet someone. So I took his picture. The grossest part of this is his little leg things. What are those?

Sick

I have had a horrible cold for the last 3 weeks. It started the day after Christmas and was all about my nose. I have a slight fever one day and then spent the next week and a half within arm's reach of a tissue box. It sucked. It's also really dry in Korea during the winter, so sleeping with your mouth open because you can't breathe through your nose is extra sucky.

Now, it has turned into a cough. I am not sure if this is still the same cold or if it's actually something totally new. It involves lots and lots of coughing, usually with a fair amount of goo. I went to the doctor the other day, who I think thought I was trolling for drugs, who basically told me nothing was wrong with me, but that I needed to drink lots of hot water and not talk. Yea. That wasn't going to work so well with my boss. He gave me 2 days worth of cough medicine which pretty much did nothing. I am still coughing but I think it might be slightly better. I decided to take the weekend off from doing anything to try and recover some. Hopefully this will be gone soon!

Happy New Year, 2012

I decided to go with Liezle and Anna to Busan for New Year's. I didn't really want to do the whole bar/club scene, because I've done that before and it is always sort of a let down, but honestly I didn't want to be by myself or sitting in a coffee shop or something either. My favorite New Years are the ones where I'm at home with either family or friends, playing games and laughing. I don't need a club to do that. One of the best times I've had was with my mom and sister playing Family Feud and making Holly laugh so hard she peed her pants. So my expectations for the weekend weren't that high. Not to mention the night before I went to Liezle's apartment where she and Anna were trying on cutesy dresses and I had already decided that I wasn't going to get that dressed up, so then I felt slightly awkward.

Anyway, we left around noon on Saturday and met Dan and his co-worker Hyo (rhymes with Go) at the bus station. When we got to Busan, Liezle and I had an armpit session, so we left the rest of the group to go and find a hotel. There was some confusion because we had hoped to stay in a swanky hotel or possibly at Dan's aunt's house, but those didn't work out. When we finally got to where they were, everyone was in kind of a pissy mood. We (Liezle and I) didn't want to spend alot of money on a hotel and we knew of a cheap place to go. They (the rest of the group) didn't really care about money and booked a different place. So then we split up and just got our own place to stay.

We stayed at the Full House Motel. It was decent, especially for the price. At least it was clean.  It was also so warm that I didn't need a blanket which was good because Liezle, Vera and I shared one, which means I didn't have any covers anyway!

The excellent view from our hotel window. Trash! I could reach out and touch that balcony if I had wanted to. I didn't.

Everything ended up fine and we all went to lunch at a Mexican place called "Fuzzy Navels". I got an avocado and chicken burrito and it was pretty good, but slightly overpriced. Dan, Liezle, Anna and Hyo split a pitcher of Long Island Iced tea, but I stuck with margaritas. We met another friend randomly in the restaurant and hung out with him for awhile. We played a round of darts (I won) then moved on to another bar. We ended up at Thursday Party (it's a chain bar) and played 2 rounds of beer pong. It was pretty fun, but Anna and Liezle wouldn't drink the beer, so Hyo and I ended up drinking a lot of it.

Christmas decorations at Thursday Party.

Bear on the ceiling. Not sure why.

After beer pong we left and went to dinner. We played some drinking games and Hyo taught us some Korean swears (although I don't really remember them now). He had about a bottle of soju to himself and was really drunk. At one point he got all confused and said, "I don't know if I should be speaking English or Korean!" after asking the waiter for something in English. We took him back to the hotel and then everyone got dressed to go out. Vera, who was staying with me and Liezle, came and got ready with us.

Dinner. It's really thin slices of pork. It cooks super fast and is pretty good.

Playing chopsticks

Cooking the meat and some bean sprouts (and garlic on the left side)

Then we went to a bar called Wolfhounds. It was kind of expensive so we didn't stay for long. We saw some other Jinju people there and chatted for awhile. Then we left and went to a club(ish) called Billie Jean's. There was a band playing and they were ok, but not really the vibe we were looking for. I went to the bathroom and when I came back, Dan and Anna had decided to leave, Liezle had ordered a drink and was on the verge of tears and Vera was staying out of it. My only requests as far as clubs went was not to pay cover and to be with people at midnight. It was 5 minutes until midnight when Dan and Anna left.

Midnight was a little anti-climatic for me. There was a count down, but no ball drop, no balloons, no confetti or hats or horns or auld lang syne. I had bought a calling card earlier that night to try and call my siblings and/or mom, but it wouldn't work (it later took my bosses 10 minutes to figure out how to use it, which included calling customer service, a switch of phone numbers and a 3 am call to my sister - sorry Holly!). When I went back in the bar, we decided to play some pool. While we were playing, a random Korean guy wanted to play with us. I was so tired at that point that I could barely keep my eyes open. I had worn my contacts so my eyes were even more tired. The guy was a little creepy and we decided to leave pool and go dancing. On the dance floor we met up with a friend from another city. We danced for awhile and then Vera and I almost fell asleep sitting on bar stools, so we decided to leave. Liezle joined us about 30 minutes or so later. We chatted for a bit then fell asleep.

Busan Christmas lights. It looked like there was a whole display but nobody else wanted to go see it with me. Nerds.

The next morning, Dan, Anna and Hyo came over while we were still getting ready. They left to get some breakfast and to try and go shopping because Dan wanted pants. The original plan was to meet up with them, but I didn't want soup (which they did - it is a popular Korean breakfast. There is even a soup called 'hangover' soup. It's gross. I wanted pancakes, but that didn't happen.) so Liezle and I went somewhere else. We were both really tired and decided to just go home. We fell asleep on the way home and took naps at our apartments. Then we met up with Anna and had dinner. It was an ok weekend. I was glad I wasn't alone, we had a few laughs, but overall I think I am pretty much done with the "party" scene. I'm not saying I won't go out again, but I like other types of bars and activities. I really like beer pong, pool and darts, but I don't like smokey, loud dance clubs anymore. I think I need to be doing something to really enjoy bars and dancing only cuts it for a little while.

I included this Advent calendar here only because I bought it the day after Christmas and ate it the day after New Year's (with some help). Also, it's weird. There is no cat in Christmas stories. Weird Norwegians (at least I think that's who made it).

Christmas in Korea

Christmas day started out with going to Liezle's to help her carry the food to the church. When I got there, Anna was already helping her and our friend Nick was there too and actually drove us to the church. We had a regular church service and then had a potluck dinner. There was a lot of food and it was extremely varied. There was Mexican, American, South African, English and obviously Korean. Luckily it all blended together quite well. After everyone ate, we did a gift exchange. We drew a number and when our number was called we got to pick a present out of the pile. No stealing. We had to open the present up front though so everyone could see. It was fun. I got these push-up handles and I swapped presents with Dan so I ended up with a pair of slippers. They're pretty nice but I like my other ones better. The church also gave everyone a tin of Danish butter cookies which for some reason really reminded me of my grandma's house, so we must have eaten them there, but I don't really remember doing that.

Buffet. Yum. There was another table with almost as much food on it behind this one.

Ilani's present - fleece crazy pants. She gave them to another friend to wear as pj pants (or not...)

After food and presents Anna, Dan, Liezle and I went to a coffee shop. We didn't really have plans, but none of us really wanted to go home. We stayed at the coffee shop for at least an hour (possibly longer) just talking. Then we went to Rock Bar where we had a few drinks, played some pool and some darts. Hardly anyone was there (then again it was around 7pm) so we had the place basically to ourselves which was nice.

Guy on the street dressed as a reindeer. Nobody really paid attention to him because people dress up like this all the time. I wanted to get a better picture, but when I got closer, a friend of his was sitting on him.

Anna, me and Liezle after playing pool

Group darts shot. Not sure why Dan is down so low. Later that night we got a call from the bar owner (who knows Dan) because someone (who gave his number to Anna) left without paying. The owner wanted the guy's number so that he could call the cops and find the guy. I don't know what happened after that.

Us around the Rock bar tree

After that we met up with Mike, Caleb and Eoin for dinner. Mike's parents sent him money for Christmas and he decided that he wanted to buy everyone dinner. We went to a bbq place and stayed for a couple of hours eating, drinking and playing games.

Bbq dinner - pork and kimchi bean sprouts. There was another grill with a different kind of meat on it too. Plus we had rice and some other veggies.

Caleb and Mike playing "chopsticks" which is basically this pointing game

Pretty sure this is blood sausage of some type. I know it's made of intestines. I tried the black one, it doesn't really taste like anything, but it's very chewy. I couldn't try the other ones because they looked too much like intestines.

Anna and Eoin in a shoot out during "Hoe-down"

After dinner we all went to another bar and played some more darts and just sat around talking to each other. It was a really fun night. Totally not a "normal" Christmas, but fun.

Anna, Dan, me and Mike at Beast Bar. 

The group at Beast bar right before we all went home.

Me and the tree from Beast bar

When I got home, I skyped my siblings and talked to my aunt for a bit. I had Monday and Tuesday off, so I slept in and did some laundry and skyped with my family a couple of times. I was able to watch some present opening, but nobody could hear me so it was very awkward. It was nice seeing everyone's faces though. On Wednesday, our winter "camp" started so my hours are now earlier in the day and I have extra classes. M,W,F I have 8 classes and T,Th I have 9 classes. It's very busy, but I actually like camp because the kids are a bit better behaved and the class sizes are a bit smaller, so classes themselves are more fun.

I'm actually starting to get nervous that I won't have enough info after all my holiday posts to actually keep up with my resolution. But I will try.

Kids essays - Part 8 - Christmas card edition

Most of these have already been put up on facebook, but I will share them here as well. The last week of fall semester was hard. Everyone was tired, we had finals to write, grade, redo. The kids were all ready to be done too. One "bad" part of my job is that I don't really get to do fun stuff with my kids. Sometimes this is awesome - I actually teach them instead of watching Mr. Bean. Sometimes this sucks because hey, who doesn't love Mr. Bean? The last 2 days of class, I let the kids "play". We didn't actually play anything fun, but instead of doing real lessons, I let them make Christmas cards. Some kids got into it. Others, not so much. It didn't really help that Caroline was also doing basically the same thing in her classes. Here are some of the results:

This one is really only cute because of the misspelling of Merry, which she fixed.

Their original assignment (before they could make cards) was to write about another  holiday in a different country. Alice wrote about Halloween, which of course is never complete without Abraham Lincoln (aka Lincan) wearing jeans and sporting a sweet Korean style bowl cut.

Andy did not really want to draw a Christmas card. This is actually his second drawing.  But when he showed me the final product, this side was shown first. I really like his reindeer.

This is the original drawing. It started with the tree with knives and a skull on top. This just shows that some stereotypes are true - boys like guns etc. regardless of nationality.

This is one of the older boys. I did not give him a present.

This was a nice card done by Jane. Her older brother Jason also goes to my school. She likes to describe him as fat, even though he isn't.

I really don't know why I can't rotate pictures here. Ryan drew a picture of Jinju castle, then got bored and decided to reenact the battle using Mario and Luigi. You know, the historic version.

This is from Julie. They call me L/S teacher. The older kids usually call me Ryan, but all the younger ones call me Teacher and if there are 2 of us, they designate by which classes we teach.

Again with the vertical! This is Mack's drawing. My favorite part is the kid sleeping next to the tree. Although the reindeer is pretty cool. Reminds me a little of Max from "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"

Mary made a book

I think I'd like blue Cristmas, even though Elvis didn't.

Yellow Critmas has a lot going for it, but green shows patriotism...tough call.

She got new pens earlier that day - thus the colorful Christmas

This is the card Mary made for me at home. She was shy when she gave it to me and apologized for printing things off the internet instead of drawing them herself.

Damn straight I'm lovely

This is Olivia's drawing. I enjoy the festive air with "have a good time", but my favorite feature is the "fire" label.

This is the front of Optimus's card. He is one of my older boys and has corrupted some of the others by showing them videos from Lonely Island. Now they sing inappropriate songs.

The inside of his card - To Santa and reindeers. You didn't give me present last year. Screw you guys!

This is how easy it is to impress children. They thought my Rudolph was awesome.

Santa got compliments too. I seriously need to work on my beards.

This was homework that Alice did. They were supposed to write and draw about exercise. It says, "Playing runing mushine is healthy!" It means running on a treadmill is healthy.

The outside of Steve's card. He is in one of the youngest levels and is 10 I think.

The inside of the card. He thought it was hilarious when I opened it.

This is some of Hannah's homework. There is nothing really funny about any of this. I just think it's cute.

 This next card deserves more than just a caption. This is Tommy's class project. He chose this instead of a Christmas card. He was supposed to pick a country and write about a famous person, landmark and holiday. Here's what he wrote in the top: USA is great country continent is North Americans language is English important day is Thanksgiving important person is Lincoln favorite city is New York it is stateue of liberty USA help 6-25

You have to give him props for capital letters, but the boy can't use a period to save his life. He also holds his pencil in a fist which helps to account for the awful handwriting. So he drew the flag, wrote this, drew the Statue of Liberty (which by the way is holding a book labeled "book"), then started drawing tanks on the bottom to show how we helped South Korean during the war (they often call it the 6-25 war). So he then turned the tank into a robot tank and set the North Koreans on fire. Then he drew Mario and Luigi. For some reason Luigi is a South Korean and Mario is a North Korean. Luigi cut Mario in half with a chainsaw and he became an angel. So now that you have the background, here's the picture:

After Christmas card class, we were finished with school for the next few days. We obviously had Christmas Eve off (since it was Saturday), but we also had Monday and Tuesday off as well. Friday night I decided to decorate a bit and made a card wall. That night Liezle came over after work and we just sat and chatted for awhile then went to bed because we were both really tired.

Card wall over my couch.

On Saturday, I met up with Liezle and Keung He for lunch and coffee at Beans Farm. We split a waffle. Then we ran some errands and went grocery shopping because we had to make food for the church potluck on Sunday. It was a comedy of errors because neither of us are that great at cooking, and we only had Liezle's toaster over to bake in. We decided to make a potato bake using potatoes (duh), mushrooms, onions, bacon and cream. It was good but we had to cook it in tiny batches. We also screwed up the first batch of potatoes and ended up turning them into mashed potatoes. We also decided to make ice cream pies because we didn't know if anyone was going to bring dessert. I crushed peanut butter Oreos with a vodka bottle because neither of us had a rolling pin. We decided to try to decorate them using chocolate syrup. Mistake. It's really hard o draw with that stuff if you don't put it in a piping bag or ziploc bag. They tasted ok, but we forgot to cover them and so I think they were slightly freezer burned. We were also in a rush because there was a candlelight service at church and we wanted to go to that too. It was really fun cooking with Liezle though and while we made a mess, said the word "shit" a dozen times and used our hands as substitutes for just about every utensil (we washed them first), we also laughed and turned out some decent food. 

It's an awful picture of me, but whatever. This showcases the Christmas tree pie. It's also a picture of me wearing pearls from Holly. As she put it, "I know you didn't ask for them and probably don't want them, but I thought you needed them so wear them."

This was my attempt at a snowman. He was ok until I tried the hat and arms. Then he turned into cowboy snowman.

After cooking, we rushed to a cab and went to church. They had it decorated and lit with candles. We each had a dixie cup with a tea light in it as well. We sang carols and read passages about Christmas. I read an excerpt out loud to everyone. After this Liezle and I went to see Sherlock Holmes because we didn't want to go to a bar, but didn't want to go home either. We were really tired at the end of the movie though.

Candles and a star at the front of the church

Next up: Christmas Day.