My week summed up

I made zucchini bread with my host brother on Monday night and it was delicious! Good thing the recipe made 2 loaves, because my host family and I devoured one the first night! I brought the 2nd one to my hanji class on Thursday and the women also devoured it. :-) They were impressed that I could make that from scratch. Baking is still so foreign to Koreans -- most apartments/homes aren't equipped with ovens. I really lucked out that my host family has one (even though they only know how to use it to broil fish). Hanji class went well. Naoko, the Japanese teacher, joined my Korean classes and now I think she is joining the hanji class as well. She's super nice! ^^ And I can practice my Korean with her, because her Korean is very good. Anyway, I almost finished my first hanji project! A beautiful Kleenex box cover (yes, I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but it is really beautiful!) Next week I will do the final glue to seal it. I started my next project, which is a tiny chest of drawer. all the other women are working on huge tables and dressers, so I asked if there were smaller projects I could work on. This little chest is super cute! I'm going to ask my co-teacher about the possibility of me going to the hanji studio maybe once a week so I can make more projects this year! I'm worried that only working once a week, I won't get as many gifts made as I would like to....

School this week has been pretty typical. Some of the quiet classes are starting to participate more, but there are a couple who either just talk all in Korean throughout class or just sit there and stare at me. I really hate having to teach those classes. I tell them every week, that if they would answer and talk in English, class would be much more fun! But if they keep it up, I might just switch to having them do dictation or something. I don't want to put the effort into teaching them if they don't bring a good attitude to my class. It's weird being on the other side of the classroom now. I always thought "Oh, this teacher is fun! That teacher isn't." But now I think that the teacher's mood and the class atmosphere completely depend on what the students make of the class, and what they contribute to class.

I was surprised the other morning when I came to unlock my classroom and found a post-it note on my door saying "Good Morning". Little things like that make all the difference in my day! ^^

So today during break time right before my class, a 2nd grader came into the room pretty early and started dancing to the pop radio I had turned on (it was "Gonna Give You Hell" at the time). It was super cute, because I don't think he knew I was watching him. And he's not one of the attention-hungry students, he's usually quite quiet in my class. He was just kinda bouncing to the beat. Then some other kids came in and he was still off in his own little world, obviously he really liked the song! Because then he did this half skip thing where he made a rapper arm gesture. It was pretty fantastic and I had to keep myself from laughing out loud! ^^

Today I'm wearing a skirt business suit, and the skirt comes to about 3 inches above my knees and I feel so scandalous wearing it to school, even though it is completely modest by American standards. I don't know how I'm going to adjust to wearing American style clothes again... Korea has made me dress so modestly this past year. Showing my shoulders or wearing shorts...gah!

On the way home from school today I had a couple little kids ask me if I was Amanda. It's pretty funny that kids here (and probably some adults too) think all foreigners look alike, regardless of obvious physical features like hair color, body shape, or height. I mean, I don't know who Amanda is, so maybe she is a spitting image of me, but I'm banking on no. :-P

This weekend I'll be going to 정읍 (Jeong-up) with Anne to visit Shelby for her town's cherry blossom festival. The trees look beautiful here! I think we're going to try to do some hiking and catch the fireworks show also. The weather has been warming up during the day, even though it still gets pretty cold at night. I hope the weather will be nice this weekend! :-D