A few briefs...

Today during cleaning time, one of the students cleaning the main teachers' office suddenly yelled "FIRE IN THE HOLE!" and then threw a rock at his friend! ^^

4 students came to have free talk with me during lunch today. SO CUTE! :-D I will miss them all!!! And then one of them, Hans (who is one of my fav students), gave me a very sweet letter that made me melt! This whole year was worth it, if for nothing but that letter. <3

Korea has been having a lot of rain this week... monsoon season is here! Yesterday on the way to school, one of the entrance ramps we usually take to get onto a highway was closed. It was open again today, and I could see that there had been 3 or 4 mudslides along the hill of the entrance ramp. YIKES! I know there has been a lot of flooding in some parts of the country, and I have seen that the rivers are very swollen these days.

Today after school I went to the surprise (at least for me -- no one ever tells me anything!) teachers' gathering. There was a volleyball game, but I didn't play (and thankfully I wasn't the only one this time). I helped some of the women teachers make jeon, which is a Korean style pancake. Except, it is not sweet. Instead, it has veggies, kimchi, and even squid inside. (It really is delicious! And I hope to make it for some of you when I return!) They were all soooo impressed that I could make the jeon, which involved putting oil into a pan, scooping 2 scoops of the mix into the pan, spreading the mix out, and cooking it and flipping it several times. Mrs. Song, my co-teacher last semester told me "Wow, this must be a very memorable day for you!" because I could make the jeon. How funny! They don't realize that I cook a lot in the US!

Also, I realized one thing I am looking forward to about leaving Korea is that I won't always be the center of attention (and usually being the center of attention is definitely not a good thing for me). For example, whenever a teacher talks to me at school, it always has to be a BIGGG deal. Either they are speaking basic Korean and everyone FREAKS OUT when I understand, or vice versa. They speak very broken English and then I am supposed to freak out with everyone else that they could speak English! And whenever my name comes up, everyone laughs -- they aren't laughing at me necessarily, but still it is annoying and having it happen time and again really wears on me. I know these are not mean people and they do not have bad intentions, but it does get old after a year of experiencing it.

Anyway, my host dad's mother and brother just showed up... I guess I should be a little sociable with them? Who knows... how awkward.