Last day of teaching in '08!

Yesterday was the shortest day of the year! The sunrise was super late this morning. Anyway, I guess on the shortest day of the year the Koreans have some traditions. We made a special soup that they eat on this day. It is red bean and little balls of ddeok (korean rice cake). I guess Koreans used to throw this soup around the entrance to their homes to protect it from evil spirits. Also, we had ho-bbang last night as a late night snack (pam-cham)-- little buns of white bread with stuff inside. Ours had some sort of meat and red bean. I wasn't hungry at all, so I just had half of a red bean one to try it. We also had this citrus (lemon?) tea that we've been having lately. It's pretty good but leaves a slightly bitter aftertaste (like what grapefruit juice does to me). Anyway, my host dad informed me that since the nights are "longer" we must eat more food. Well, really the night is the same amount of time, but it gets darker earlier, but why should that change how much food you need to eat in a modern society? Anyway, don't question the father figure's logic, Bethany. :-) He told me that he has "animalistic" tendencies still -- he hibernates in the winter: he sleeps more and eats more. And then he loses his appetite in the summer. So he needs to "eat all the food now for summer." Ok host dad. Good luck keeping those calories around till then and then efficiently burning them off when you need them. :-)

Today was my last day of teaching at school. I'll be going to school tomorrow as well, but it's the day of the school festival! So there are no classes, and I will be performing a hip hop dance with 2 of my students. (It will either be awesome or horrible, I'm hoping for the first) School today was pretty crappy. My students didn't want to be in class and I didn't want to be teaching them. Last week should really have been our last day. The students go until Dec 31, but my contract officially ends today. The students were really not in the mood to do anything in class last week (even though it was making Christmas cards, which should be fun), because the week before was their final exams. Yes, they have classes for 2 weeks after final exams. Doesn't make sense does it? So I decided to just show my classes today "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" original version. But, I couldn't find subtitles for it, so they didn't understand too much. Oh well, it was the last day, so neither the students or I cared. :-P You are probably thinking I sound like a shitty teacher right now, and I wouldn't argue with you. I'm definitely ready for a break and I hope my students recharge for next semester. But I'm also really looking forward to teaching my winter English camp, which is in about 3 weeks. I will have kids who are either more advanced or more motivated to learn English, or both. So I think Anne and I will get to do some really cool stuff with them! :-)

Anyway, off to knitting... I'm making my host family an afghan for Christmas.