Turkeyless Thanksgiving and chicken pox...
My kindergarteners have chicken pox. Or at least 4 of them do (out of 10) which means the rest of them will probably get it. Two of them came to school today even though they probably should have been home which means all of the kids have been exposed. It was almost pointless teaching today since I could tell that none of my kids felt well and they couldn't concentrate. This could be a fun week. Good thing I already had chicken pox.
Speaking of chicken...that's what we ate for our Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday. No turkey here...or pumpkin pie or green bean casserole or cranberry sauce or stuffing. We don't have ovens so we can't make most of the thanksgiving food we eat at home. We had a ton of food for dinner...just not the food we're used to for Thanksgiving. It was good though and a lot of fun. Christmas could be weird without all the cookies and stuff. I did buy a little fake christmas tree yesterday...its cute but it doesn't have that christmas tree smell. :(
Other than that this month has been pretty uneventful. I haven't really done anything exciting. Just a couple of trips into Seoul for some shopping and no sightseeing. I finally got a cell phone...which is really handy because its a major pain to have to find a pay phone (and one that acutally takes coins) when you're supposed to meet someone and you get lost or they're late. Or I keep missing phone calls when I'm not home but I don't know someone was trying to reach me until I see them next and they tell me since we don't have answering machines here. Its just a pre-paid phone (and all the menus are in Korean) but it'll work for what I need it for. The nice thing is that all incoming calls are free here...so as long as I'm not making many calls it'll be cheap.
Last week was hell week here. Oral tests and report cards for all afternoon classes and phone tests, oral tests and report cards for kindergartners. Phone tests were aweful to do. Last time my coteacher called for me and just gave the phone to me when they had gotten my student on the line but this month they made us call ourselves and ask for our student in Korean. They gave us a script but it really sucked especially if we dialed a wrong number or the kid wasn't home and the parent tried to explain that to us. There were a few times when I had to frantically find a Korean to translate for me...not fun. I don't like calling people normally so calling in Korean was really bad. I managed to survive but it wasn't much fun. Meghan and I were so exhausted after last week that we went to Seoul and treated ourselves to massages which was really nice.
Speaking of chicken...that's what we ate for our Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday. No turkey here...or pumpkin pie or green bean casserole or cranberry sauce or stuffing. We don't have ovens so we can't make most of the thanksgiving food we eat at home. We had a ton of food for dinner...just not the food we're used to for Thanksgiving. It was good though and a lot of fun. Christmas could be weird without all the cookies and stuff. I did buy a little fake christmas tree yesterday...its cute but it doesn't have that christmas tree smell. :(
Other than that this month has been pretty uneventful. I haven't really done anything exciting. Just a couple of trips into Seoul for some shopping and no sightseeing. I finally got a cell phone...which is really handy because its a major pain to have to find a pay phone (and one that acutally takes coins) when you're supposed to meet someone and you get lost or they're late. Or I keep missing phone calls when I'm not home but I don't know someone was trying to reach me until I see them next and they tell me since we don't have answering machines here. Its just a pre-paid phone (and all the menus are in Korean) but it'll work for what I need it for. The nice thing is that all incoming calls are free here...so as long as I'm not making many calls it'll be cheap.
Last week was hell week here. Oral tests and report cards for all afternoon classes and phone tests, oral tests and report cards for kindergartners. Phone tests were aweful to do. Last time my coteacher called for me and just gave the phone to me when they had gotten my student on the line but this month they made us call ourselves and ask for our student in Korean. They gave us a script but it really sucked especially if we dialed a wrong number or the kid wasn't home and the parent tried to explain that to us. There were a few times when I had to frantically find a Korean to translate for me...not fun. I don't like calling people normally so calling in Korean was really bad. I managed to survive but it wasn't much fun. Meghan and I were so exhausted after last week that we went to Seoul and treated ourselves to massages which was really nice.