Mid-March 1: Sunday through Thursday

Last week felt really busy for some reason, but everything for the most part was fairly routine. After going to the island on Saturday, I went to church on Sunday. After the sermon and some time to say hi to everyone, my friend Lance started up a new post-sermon discussion group. The idea behind the group is to discuss the main points in the sermon and make sure we understood them. Then each person (if they want to share) talks about how it applies to their life, what they want to personally work on that week, and then asks for prayer requests. My request was that people pray for my mom to keep going in her listening to the Bible (sort of along with my 180 days reading) and not to get discouraged. Then we had a planning team meeting at Brandon and Jamie's where we talked about some upcoming programs. A couple of people couldn't make it due to illness and a funeral, so we didn't get to talk about some issues, but overall I think the meeting went well. Afterwards I met up with Dallas and we went to get dinner. He suggested dakgalbi, which I love, but on the walk there, wanted to go into Kilogram. I wasn't that interested in it and after we looked at the menu, we decided to leave and get dakgalbi anyway. The guy made it pretty spicy, but I think my taste buds are changing because it didn't really bother me. Then we got coffee and looked at some magazines while we waited. Dallas brought me this one, which I actually looked through. It was ridiculous.

I was charmed by one on them, but most of the cats were creepy looking

After dinner and coffee, we stopped off at a store called Alpha which has random office supplies, art supplies and other things like that. Dallas is starting a "treasure chest" of sorts in his class as a way to help manage classroom behavior and he wanted to look for potential prizes. While we were in there he found a can of fake snow and bought it because he is 5 years old. On the walk home he spent the vast majority of the time spraying me with the snow. Here is one picture but you can't really see how covered I was because of my white sweatshirt.

You can kind of see snow in my hair...it's not dandruff

On Monday I went to dance class with Krista, then met a lady for coffee. After that I went to work. Monday is a weird day for me because I have the first class, but then I have a 3-4 hour break (our schedules have shifted a lot recently and last week it happened to be a 4 hour one). So I ended up meeting Dallas for dinner again at 5:15. We split the same thing we had last week (kimchi friend rice and tuna kimbap), then he had a meeting and I had to go back to school to sit for another 2 hours. During the break I caught up on 180 days, did some vocab with kids and checked on them a bit, and studied for Korean class. In class we are practicing pronunciation by trying to read a fairy tale (even though we have no idea what the translation is). One of the students got very frustrated and argued with Woods after class. As you know, I don't like confrontations of any kind, so I got out of there quickly.

On Tuesday we had Bible study. Our class right now is really small because one regular is back in the States visiting family, Jamie stayed at home with Olivia because she's afraid Olivia will be a distraction, one lady was sick and a couple of other are now doing a Wednesday night class instead. Luckily two girls are joining us this upcoming week; they got the times mixed up and came at 11 when we were finishing class! After class I went home, made lunch and took a nap. Nothing special happened at work that I can remember. I know I need to write on here more because I forget stuff or things mush together since they do repeat a lot, but I've been really tired once I get home now that I basically check email then go straight to sleep.

Wednesday I met Krista for class. Which is still the same - fun but hard. She has us do these squat things where we hold positions then do jumpy dancing, so my thighs are killing me by the end of class. I also get looks on my walk home because I'm covered in sweat so I walk home without a jacket while all the Koreans are still bundled up. After class, I met Corinne for lunch and we walked to a Vietnamese place in p-dong. I'd been there before, but order something new for me - beef pho. It was really good. We also split banana rolls, which is weird for me because I don't really like bananas, but these things are awesome. Especially when you dip them in sweet chili sauce. The guy had some problems running my credit card (because we wanted to split the bill on 2 cards), but finally figured it out. Then we got coffee at this cute place called Lee Dong Woo coffee. The owner is super nice and likes foreigners a lot. They also do coffee art for lattes and have various hand drip coffees. It's a little pricier than other places, but sometimes that's worth it. We walked to the post office so Corinne could mail some stuff, then we walked to school. That night one of my student's mom's bought pizza for everyone, so we delayed the last class a bit to snack. Luckily it was a speaking class for me anyway and I chatted to them about their weekends and school while we ate.

On Thursday it was White Day. That's the March version of Valentine's Day but when the boys give stuff to the girls. I think I wrote a post earlier about a play my friends are putting on in April called MMRP, but in case you didn't read it, my friends are putting on a play in April called MMRP. The idea behind it is similar to the Vagina Monologues but with a slightly different slant. We are doing fundraisers for the Jinju YWCA to help with programs to prevent violence against women. White Day was one of these fundraisers. The organization of it sort of didn't happen and I ended up having to meet a friend at his apartment, then carry a huge box full of treats on a bus alone and try to sell them in front of the movie theater. It didn't really happen. I ended up sitting there for awhile, then buying some rainbow fudge for my students and dropping the box off. The place I was originally supposed to set up had a police demonstration out in front that morning, then I got some evil eye glares when I went to the opposite corner. I ended up on a bench in front of the theater where people basically left me alone, but also didn't really buy anything. It was also hard because I don't speak Korean and didn't have any flyer or anything explaining V-day or the fundraiser. Plus mid-morning on a Thursday isn't a high volume traffic time for people downtown. Luckily they had another set up near a college campus and moved the next group of people there. I think over all they sold a decent amount of stuff.

Rainbow fudge, chocolate cake pops and "unicorn poo" cookies made by Evan and some other helpers. All of these were really good. They also had chocolate covered strawberries, but I didn't buy those.

After I left the box with another girl, I went home and met Dallas at his school (which is basically next to my building) and gave me some of the treats. I also went to look at his new classroom set up because they gave him some new desks and he put the plants we bought on Sunday in the room. We chatted for a few minutes then he had class so I left and went to school myself. I brought the fudge to class and then kids destroyed it. They didn't really know the concept of fudge, but know what chocolate is so I just told them it was colored chocolate. I probably should have hit it and given it to the older kids because, trust me, the little ones do not need extra sugar. A couple of students also gave the teachers stuff.

That night in Korean class we started to learn some basic grammar so that we could start to put sentences together. I still have pronunciation problems, but I'm getting better.