So today, we just completed a cookie swap with all of our friends. Of course, since we were the only ones with an oven, we didn't just have any cookie swap. Everyone came over and actually baked their cookies here. We've never done so much baking in our entire lives. Our oven was on for five hours straight and was never empty for more than about ten seconds as we exchanged cookie sheets. It was exhausting, but we had a lot of fun. Here's what we've got now:
Kelly: Pumpkin Spice with Cinnamon Icing
Sara: Chocolate Chip (a classic!!)
Vanessa: Dutch Cookies
Laina (in absentia, cookies sent via Vanessa!!): Almond Cookies
Richard: Sugar Cookies (courtesy of Pillsbury!! Dicky was VERY proud!)
Becky: Peanut Butter Cookies topped with a Hershey Kiss
Tammy and Brent: Haystacks
Jen and Jeff: Cinnamon 'N Sugar Shortbread
It was tons of fun and now we're all stuffed with sugar and butter. And we've barely scratched the surface. Everyone went home with a great big container of cookies that will last us until we can get together another cookie swap!!
Tammy holding the goods while Sara and Jen start the distribution.
It was a big process, indeed!
Here are the fruits of our labours. Incidentally, we had a hard
time fitting all the cookies into everyone's containers.
So, I'm at work, I have 20 minutes left before I can leave and I'm bored. I've marked about 100 tests this afternoon and my eyes are tired... We're heading off for Thai food tonight with some friends. I'm excited about the food, hopefully it will be good!
I'll give you some funny language stories while I wait.... Both my co-teachers speak great English, but there are still some words they are unfamiliar with.
1.) "Martinis are cheaper at the theatre." Yes, martinis.... however, she meant matinees.... I still kid her about this mistake....
2.) Co-teacher: "We're going to see a movie about Vee-tho-van.
Me: "Who? Luther Vandross?"
Co-teacher: "No, Vee-tho-van...." she pulled up the movie website, it's Copying Beethovan. Apparently I get to watch the film with the rest of the teachers next Tuesday at the World Cup Stadium (luckily for me it's in English with Korean subtitles!)
Random Thought of the Day....
By the way (hahaha.. that's the name of a convenience store here...) does anyone know how I can clean my ring of hard water stains? The gold and the diamond are less sparkley (apparently this isn't a word...) and I worry that perhaps my stone could fall out in the future from all the extra grit.
Okay, I'm out. I've obviously been sitting here for too long, this post is pretty random...
~of course it's Jen, not Jeff who posted....
Ok, so we've kind of neglected our blog for the last little while. And it just keeps getting worse as time goes by, because the more time we wait, the more stuff we have to write about and the longer the post becomes and the less we want to write, so we wait...
You can see where this is going. So... I decided that we should write at least something. There really is too much to catch up on in one post. I'll be honest. I don't want to write all of this in one go either. But really, neither do you want to read all about it in one go. But I digress...
So what's going on now? Hmmm, well my students will be starting midterms tomorrow (yes, they have exams... and regular classes too, actually, on Saturdays). So two of my classes today are cancelled so the teachers can review with them. Midterms will continue into Monday and Tuesday next week. This means that I've got a lot of time to prep for my next lessons and to slow down a little. The first month of teaching has been good, but it's been somewhat busy as we've been adjusting to a new workplace and a new home at the same time.
Outside school, we've been keeping an active social life and have been planning lots of activities and trips. We just returned from a mushroom festival (it was small and uh, well... interesting) and a river trek (super cool) last weekend. I'm still sorting through the pictures, which I'll post soon, but in the meantime, I have uploaded some pictures of past weeks' adventures, so check those out while you wait.
Tomorrow, we're having a large group of our friends join us for a Thanksgiving dinner. We're pretty excited! It'll be Richard's first Thanksgiving (he's a Brit) and a little early for Becky (she's from south of the 49th parallel), but we're all excited. No turkey, but there'll be roast chicken, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, and apple pie for the traditional stuff. Then we've also got channa masala, chili, fresh breads and cheeses, and of course an assortment of salads and veggies. Our place is going to be packed (we're going to cram about 12 people into our tiny apartment!), but it's going to be a blast.
So that's the news of late. Hope that everyone back home is doing well.
-jeff
BBQ Dinner - Korean style! (L - R) Vanessa, Kelly, Sarah, Jeff, Richard, Brent
Yesterday evening we decided to leave the confines of the training centre and venture out to try some real Korean food. Seven of us (three being vegetarians) headed off with some stunted Korean and a desire to eat with the locals. Let me be clear - we definitely HAVE been eating Korean food while at the training centre, but it hasn't been the greatest, and it definitely was not eaten whilst sitting on the floor. This was our first Korean dinner/food experience. It's pretty funny, everywhere we go the Koreans first turn to Jeff and begin speaking to him in Korean since he's the only Asian guy with us. He just ends up staring blankly back at them while one of the white folk take over the discussion.
Richard has been in Korea for a year and has a fairly good grasp on the language. Before deciding to eat at this restaurant he established with the hostess (in Korean) that three of us were vegetarian and would not eat meat. Fine. No problem! The omnivores ordered the traditional BBQ meat (can you see the raw meat on the mini BBQ on our table? It was cooked right in front of us!! The copper pipes hanging down provide fans for the BBQ in case it starts smoking ~ Very cool says this vegetarian!) and we were ordered a noodle dish. When the food arrived I was surprised to see that the noodle dish was cold (there was ice floating in the soup), and there was a piece of meat floating in the soup too! I tried the soup, but it wasn't my favourite. I'm sture that I'll try it again - sometimes the first time I try things I don't like them and then I acquire a taste for them, but we'll have to see. It looks like eating vegetarian will be tough (at least in the small towns, I've heard that in Seoul - pronounced Sea-oo-u-l - is much easy to find vegetarian food).
In addition to a lovely meal out (the BBQ really was cool!) we also have experienced the opportunity to learn how to dance the traditional Korean dances. Our teacher was a forty-ish year old Korean (who did not speak English) with a lot of passion and energy for the dance of his native country. We donned white fabric sleeves (they were essentially a tube of white fabric with an elastic band at one end. The elastic band was placed around the wrist, while the rest of the fabric hung almost to the floor - see Jeff's video for more details) and began to dance. The experience was pretty hilarious - you most likely had to be there, however, I captured some of Jeff's dancing (he's the one in brown, sorry it's so little!) on video and will share that with you all so that y'all can feel as though you were there laughing along with me! (I seriously laugh out loud when watching this video ~ at the beginning he has some trouble with matching the rest of the group, but by the end he's got it going on!)
That's it for this post. A bit of random Korean culture. Tomorrow (Thurs) we're heading into Seoul to watch an English class in action (a demonstration classroom) and to visit the National Museum of Korea. On Friday we finally move into our apartment (yeh!!) and will begin to get settled for teaching classes on Monday. I'm sure there will be more about Korean schools and our roles in the future so stay tuned (sorry, I'm a dork!)
~Jen
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