her majesty's a pretty nice girl, but she changes from day to day

Hello!

It is Tuesday night here and I am sick :(  Melissa said she would go with me to the pharmacy tomorrow. It's nothing serious, just an obnoxious cold. So I should be all better by the end of the week! Things are going good here. We got a new schedule at work (again) but this time it is pretty rad! Since one of our three kindergarten classes is now attending elementary school, we were unsure about how the morning schedule would work. Originally, after Heather's class left, My star class would have moved to her and I would have gotten a new kindergarten. But since we only had one new student, we just put all the kinders together. So every Monday, Wednesday and every other Friday I teach them and Heather doesn't have to be at work until 2:00 p.m. So Tuesdays, Thursdays and every other Friday I don't have to be at work until 1:25 p.m. I teach an extra grammar/writing class in the afternoons from 1:25-1:55. I'm sure this won't last long, but it rocks while it lasts!

Last weekend I hung out with Katie, Jen, Jordana and Laura in Hongdae. Hongdae is a university area of Seoul and we had a lot of fun! Saturday night Heather and I met up with Chinchu for dinner. Sunday was a pretty lazy day. I finished my student evaluations and watched movies. We did go to a place called "The All-American Diner" for breakfast. It was pretty good. Nothing like back home though! We may go to Suji this weekend... not 100% sure yet. 

Tonight we went to the hospital with our co-workers because Cinderella's brother died last night. He had stomach cancer. Going to the hospital is their version of going to the viewing. We walk in and they have a kind of shrine made in this special room. There is a big photograph of him and underneath it are a bunch of flowers and a table with candles and incense.  His family were wearing black hanbok surrounding the shrine. Everyone there to pay respects would remove their shoes and step up to the alter. They would light the candle/incense (not really sure) And bow deeply two times. Then they would face the male members of the family and bow. It was interesting to see, but I feel so sad for Cinderella. Afterward she led us to this room where we all ate. 

My kid's graduation ceremony was last Friday and they did such a great job! I was honestly scared about their performance. Especially the play they put on! I even dreamt about it twice Thursday night! But they were amazing! I was so proud! I took lots of videos, and I will post them on my youtube channel (blackbirdlane) soon! First they sang "A Whole New World" from Aladdin. Then they introduced each other. Melissa had paired them up and had them introduce each other. Harry didn't come to school in January so he was absent for that. So he had no one to introduce and no one to introduce him. So Melissa had him introduce me... but it was a surprise! I was taking videos with my camera and Harry walked up. Then Dylan said, "Teacher! Come up here!!" I said, "What??" And Melissa said, "Yes, Anna Teacher, Harry will introduce you." It was so sweet! I was very surprised and touched to be included! They are amazing kids, I will miss my kinders so much. Then they did reading and sang "Octopus' Garden" by the Beatles. I taught them that! It was very cute and they did a great job! Then they did the musical Huengboo and Nolboo which a traditional Korean story. 

Okay, this is getting pretty long winded and I am getting sleepy! Miss you guys so much! All of my love to you!

The kids dancing! Aren't their Hanbok beautiful??

This is Ben. He is in elementary school now.

This is my Steve!

This is Sara! She is so pretty!

This is me with my whole class! I love them!

This is me with Olivia and Ben. Do you like my Hanbok?

My beautiful girls Sara and Abi!

Three of my cute little boys Dylan, Ben and Harry!

This is Me with Shawna and Clara on Shawna's last day! I asked Shawna would she miss school and she said only me and Clara!

This is Katie, Jordana, Me, Jen and Laura in Hongdae!

we'll search for tomorrow on every shore

and I'll try, oh Lord how I'll try, to carry on...

a tribute to *a few* of the things I am missing right now...

This pretty girl

This guy
This guy... who doesn't even have hair anymore!
Of course this guy!
These beautiful ladies
daniel z, naturally
fun nights at alley cat
fun nights at the yellow house

the cutest boys and girl that have ever lived!
trivia!!!
drum circles!
even johnny rockets!
N-16!!!

And of course my family, but I seem to be lacking your pictures on my new computer! Sorry! 

I miss you all!! Love, love, love!!!

what did you see when you were there?

nothing that does not show...

this is a picture post! enjoy!

This is me outside of my school!

Jack, Amy and Abi weren't huge fans of the snow sledding

Me, Chnichu, Bella and Harry were! Chinchu and I went down a bunch of times!

Jack found other uses for his snow tube! He is the cutest!

Me, Abi and Olivia, I think.

We found a Statue of Liberty in Korea!

Sara is beautiful!

The view of Kyoto from the Kyoto train station

Me and Elijah at the temple in Wakayama.

The river in Kyoto

The first temple we went to in Kyoto

This is the Nabe soup I talked about earlier. 6 of us shared this, with some left over! Isn't it pretty!

Me at the beach in Wakayama, Japan!

This guy was guarding the temple!

i must have lost it on the wind

Hello!

Not much new going on here. The weather has gotten a little warmer which is so exciting! I can't wait for warm spring weather! We have been doing such a bad job at doing cultural stuff because it is so cold! We do have a list of things we want to do and hopefully we can start working on that list! I really want to go to the war museum and the DMZ (demilitarized zone) There is also a Buddhist temple we really want to go to! 

We had Heather's kindergarten graduation on Saturday. It was fun... it got a little dull after the first 45 minutes, but the kids were cute! The sang tons of songs including "skiddamarink" you know, the song from The Elephant Show that came on when I was a kid! That was funny! When we got there Cinderella had some Hanbok for us to wear. Hanbok are the traditional Korean dresses. They were fun to wear! Heather took pictures so once she uploads them i will put them on here! 

Saturday night Katie and I went to see Jason Mraz in concert! That was exciting! He puts on a good show! Then we had had a few beers with his band afterwards which was really cool! I guess being the only white girls in the crowd pays off sometimes! 

My kinders graduate on Friday! I am nervous about their performance! They can do the songs, but the play is a little difficult for them! They will do fine I'm sure! I am going to miss them so much! I don't want a new class, I just want to keep them! 

Well, I should be going to sleep, I just wanted to jot a little something down! More soon! All my love!

Me after the show

Jason Mraz in Seoul!!

nothin' to say but what a day

Kyoto, Japan

Me at a Golden Temple in Kyoto

Me and Elijah with the Geisha

Heather cleansing me at a temple in Kyoto

My half luck fortune
Me and Elijah at the temple in Wakayama

So, it has been awhile, but I am back! The day I got home from Japan my computer screen went out. Well, not all of it, only half. But I just bought a new laptop!! I'm so excited! I made the switch from PC to Mac and so far I really like it! So....

Japan was so much fun! It was, however, the most expensive place in the universe! And it's almost impossible to get money! ATMs don't take foreign

 debit cards (unlike Korea) and very few places take credit cards! So money was a bit of an issue for us. If you ever go, just exchange a ton of money into Yen before you go... you'll need it! 

When we got there, Elijah was waiting for us at the airport. I was so excited to see him! We took the train from Osaka into his town, Wakayama.  One of his co-workers met us at the station and took us out to eat and then took us to a temple. The

 temple was dedicated to a a man who a woman fell in love with. She chased and chased him and he ran and ran. She turned herself into a snake (dragon) and he hid in a bell. She blew fire onto the bell and he was killed. It was really interesting. Once ou

tside of the temple you could buy a fortune. You give your money and then you randomly pick a fortune from a basket. My fortune was "half luck". And I truly do have half luck! I get home from Japan and only half of my laptop works!! The fortune also said that I would have lots of babies.  Later that night we went out for dinner and drink with Elijah's friend Seiji. We had a good time!

We woke up early the next morning and went to Kyoto. In Kyoto we met up with Jen, Katie, Jordana and Lynise. Jen grew up in Kyoto so she got to play tour guide all day! We went to several temples and had a really good day. That night we went to a performance of traditional Japanese ceremonies, plays and dances. It

 was really fun! The best part was seeing the Geisha! After the performance we got to get our pictures taken with the Geisha... which was my goal in Kyoto! We didn't get back to Wakayama until about 1:30 a.m. Elijah had to work so Heather and I slept in. When he got home we went to Wakayama beach! It was a rocky beach and really pretty. That night we went out with some of Elijah's friends. We went to a restaurant that serves nabe. Nabe is a soup that you cook all sorts of meat and veggies in. It is what sumo wrestlers eat! Of course they eat one massive bowl alone and we shared ours with six people! After that we went to karaoke! Korean karaoke is more fun, but Japanese karaoke has an amazing English selection! 

So, we had a great time in Japan! We have been really busy since we got back. We had finals and then our classes moved around. Mine pretty much stayed the same, but I did lose my favorite class :(  Last weekend we hung out with Chinchu and went to this huge mall called CoEx. They have an apple store and we went there to buy my laptop, but they were out so I just paid and had it delivered to school. This weekend we are going snow sledding with the kids... sounds cold, but it should be fun. Chinchu is going with us! I bet the kids will love her. Later that night we are meeting up with Katie, Jen and Jordana in Seoul to celebrate Valentines day by watching "He's Just Not That into You". And probably some karaoke! Anyway, I hope everyone is doing well! I will post more often now that I have a decent computer and it won't take hours to post pictures!! 

All my love!

so this is christmas

Well, it's not Christmas anymore, but this is my Christmas post! We had a really fun Christmas. Wednesday night Jen, Katie and Chinchu came over to the spend the night and we celebrated with some Champagne! We each opened one gift then we watched a movie. We also had a good time playing on the Santa Tracker website and we celebrated when he got into Korea!

Christmas morning we woke up and opened our gifts. We all got a lot of cool stuff. Heather and I also had packages from our families. I got a ton of stuff! It was good to have all of us together. Had it been only Heather and I we would have been lonely and sad. But with an apartment full of people we had a good time. Of course, I still missed being home so much. It was sad not getting to watch the boys excitedly opening their gifts and showing me what Santa brought them. It was really sad to not be home with Mama, Daddy and Carly on Christmas morning. I called them though, and listened to them open presents. I help up pretty well, only Daddy and I cried... I think!

New Years was... not quite as fun. We went out to see the countdown (the equivallent of watching the peach drop, I suppose) only in a much smaller space with a bazillion more people! It was a sea of people and you couldn't just stand still. You were just carried away with the crowd. It was intense! By the time we finally got home it was like 3 a.m. and we were just cold and tired. Instead of black eyed peas and greens, we had sushi on NYD. It was delicious!

We had a really nice break, but when we came back to school our schedules were different. I teach a class now that has 3 kids that do not speak English! We are learning the alphabte right now. I thought it would be a miserable class, but I actually like it so far. They are good kids; pretty smart. I had to give them English names, which was fun. One girl already had an English name, Sallena (Selena). So for the other two, a boy and a girl, I just wrote names up on the board and let them pick. The boy chose Thomas! I thought that was cool. The girl didn't like any of the names I put up and instead chose Peach. I feel silly calling on her in class.

This coming up weekend we are going to Suji to visit Katie and Jen! They live in a small town that has a large concentration of foreigners. So, I guess we will have a good time! The weekend after that we are going to Japan!! I am so excited! We are flying into Osaka on the 24th. My best friend Elijah is living about an hour away from there in a town called Wakayama. We are going to some kind of fire festival and then we are going to the beach! I mean, it will be freezing, but I bet it will be beautiful! I miss Elijah so much and am so ready to see him again! Most of you either know or know of Elijah. We have been friends since 1st grade! We became really good friends when we both went to West Georgia! We will also be meeting up with Jen in Kyoto at some point! She has a longer vacation and her mother lives in Kyoto so we will be able to see her too!

I will take a million pictures while I am there! Well, Heather and I are going to eat dinner and watch a movie before we go to bed! Here are some pictures from Christmas! Miss you all!