Back to school

Well we headed back to school today. Everyday this week every student must get their temperature taken. We had quite a cattle drive going this morning herding students into the main entrance and auditorium to get their forehead zapped by these new high tech thermometers that take your temp in like 2 seconds. Every classroom has been equipped with a box of tissue and a huge can of "Household Surface Wipes" to make sure everybody is staying sanitary. There have been all kinds of other regulations set in place to make sure everybody is being as germophobic as possible. It honestly feels like the first day of school all over again because this week with out classes came so soon after the beginning of the year. This year could be quite interesting.

space utilization

This impresses me very much.

mission accomplished

We bought this tub of peanut butter a year ago at Costco. We finished it today. It only took us a year to top off 64oz (4 pounds) of peanut butter. I must say I feel pretty proud of that. The saltine is placed there for scaling purposes.

lean, mean, fat grilling machine

We did not get a George Foreman BUT we got a great little Korean grill to revitalize our culinary lives. Tom and I love to grill things, and we really struggled last year because we did not have an easy way to cook hamburgers or make grilled chicken. However, for just 36,000 won (about 30 bucks) we have this delightful little grill! Check out the results:


You could probably guess this is my plate of food. Tom does not eat broccoli. Although, we have made progress! He tried a piece of the steamed broccoli and said, "hmm....it's not as bad as it could be." He still wouldn't put any of it on his plate, but at least he tried it! That's a first.

Love Plant, take 3

For some reason Tom and I have linked the health of our marriage to the health of a living plant. In other words, we have a love plant. However, we have not been very successful at this over the three years we've been married. We killed our first plant in Korea, so second semester we bought a new love plant. It was doing fairly well, but we left it at school over the summer to be watered and our sad plant was the only one that died while we were away. Seriously, everyone else brought their plants into the school to be taken care of and they thrived! But our plant literally was a crusty, brown, dead twig. I don't blame the school. I think we set it up to fail because it needed to be in the shade but it got massive amounts of sun. Alas, our second love plant died.

Since learning this sad news we've been on the prowl for a new plant for our house. We found a quaint plant shop across the street and after much debate we welcomed home this new plant! We made sure to ask how to take care of it, so hopefully this love plant will thrive and inspire our marriage to do the same.

KC Royals in SK

more h1n1

One of our Principal's announcements on H1N1 closing the school.

More info

We found out that our school will be closed for a week. Apparently the Korean government is "strongly recommending" that schools close down if they have 2 confirmed cases of H1N1 or more. We have 1 confirmed case but 7 pending cases so they went ahead and gave us that strong recommendation. Honestly it all seems a bit overboard to me but I get where they are coming from. The thing that is concerning about this is the fact that it is August; not exactly the peak of flu season.

What is going to happen later in the year? Are we going to shut down for a week anytime this happens? Are we going to have to make up these days? I have no clue as to the answers of any of those questions but we shall see. This could be a very very interesting school year if the government keeps regulations this strict.

The week should be interesting because we are required to keep trying to implement material. We have a web portal that we use to interact with our students called Edline (other schools have blackboard, angel, etc.). We are posting notes, scanned textbook pages, powerpoints, assignments, test reviews, and anything that will serve to educate our students. I think the idea is that if we can prove that education is still taking place we might not have to make up the calendar days. We shall see.

Swine Flu, or should I say H1N1

We just found out that our school has several confirmed cases of H1N1 and as a result the Korean government has ordered us to stop classes for an indefinite amount of time (most likely a week). This should be interesting. More to come after our brief staff meeting tomorrow morning.

oreo balls

My friend Carly makes these amazing oreo balls. I LOVE them every time she makes them and so for our party (see previous post) I wanted to make them. Oreo balls consist of three easy ingredients: oreo's, chocolate, and cream cheese. I was able to find all the ingredients and I was so excited when I found white chocolate chips because Carly always uses white chocolate for the candy shell. It turns out, white chocolate chips do not melt very well. I used a "double broiler" (I had to invent it with my current pots and pans) and tried to keep the temperature low but the chocolate seized (hardened) almost immediately. I was mad, so Tom offered to go buy me some new chocolate (what a good man!). He picked up some more white chocolate chips but he also grabbed some milk chocolate bars just in case. This time I cooked the chocolate at a super low heat and was able to coat a few of the oreo/cream cheese balls and then it seized up again! Grrr!!! I ended up using the milk chocolate for the rest and they tasted just great, but it was a emotional defeat during the making process. All that to say, Carly's recipe worked again and they were a hit! I also did some research on the web and apparently a lot of people have a hard time melting white chocolate chips (something about the white chocolate I guess). Here was the final product:

acro party

Our apartment is called Acropark. Acro is home to quite a few people from our school, especially for the small family crowd (married with no kids or one kid). We live on the 9th floor and there are a total of 4 apartments on our floor. All four are used by people from our school. So to kick off the school year the 9th floor hosted a potluck. We put tables out in the common area and opened up all the apartments so people could chat and move around. We had a great time and we ate A LOT of food.

a birthday, korean style

We went to TGI Friday's last night for a Elias' (fellow teacher) birthday. The meal was okay, but the best part was the singing! They go for it with the tambourines, bongo drums, and funny hats. Elias got pretty into it too (he's the one standing at the table with the tambourine).

tell me about yourself

Since this is the first week of school, I had my students answer a few questions for me in class so I could learn about their own personal history. The last question on the survey was "tell me about yourself." I had some interesting responses...(I copied these word for word, so I apologize if the English is a bit off at times).

"I like to bake bread and watch animations. Also I have been to a lot of other countries. I do not have a dad."

"First of all, I like music a lot. I listen to my iPod every second. I hate Korean music and listen to classic rock, hip-hop and rock. I also have a dream that I am preparing for, becoming the world's greatest chef. So I go to baking practices after school. Also I love scooter and motorcycles, two years later I can get a license and when I do I am not taking the bus. Also I hate Korea fashion, it looks sorry and although I am Korean I hate 70% of Koreans. So my fashion is just my style I never follow what is popular. So I'm pretty much having a fun life, only out of school. Also I am non-Christian."

"I am an only child and I have a parrot named brad...from Brad Pitt."

"My dad wanted a son but his children are all girls so he calls me a son."

"I like to exercise with my dad. Every weekend we exercise together by walking. I like to go out with my mom to buy clothes."

"I'm not quiet."

"I am but a little log house surrounded by a huge bare field encircled by a forest. At times I may be the little log house, but when excited or moody the field will sprout crops and flowers. Three words that describe me: achieving, strong, but also foolish."

"I'm puzzled but I'm getting solved little by little." (this was accompanied with a picture of a rubic's cube)

"[in five years this student wants to attend] the University of Missouri Columbia because my dad studied at that school and I also want to go there." (yeahhh...Go Mizzou!)

Isn't it interesting what kids say if we just ask them to share about themselves?

gregory hines

We went to a baseball game over the weekend and sat by a Korean dude while we were there, go figure. We chatted because he spoke decent English. He said he was a tap dancer and his name was Gregory. He confirmed that it was his English name. He chose it because Gregory Hines is his idol. Nice to meet you Gregory.

The first day of school

Well we had our first day of school and as Bonnie's personal tradition dictates we took pictures of ourselves to document this historic date. So far so good...

school is starting!

My new desk. I love how clean it is right now. I strive to keep my desk as clean as possible (dad, I can give you lessons on how to do this to your desk if you'd like). :-)

The schedule for the first day.

Tomorrow is our first day of school! Wow...where did summer go? We've been spending the last week sitting and eating in meetings all in preparation of the beginning of the year. I moved classrooms (I would say I moved up in the world because my room is bigger and my view is better). The walls are still kind of bare but soon they'll be full of student work. Here's to a new school year and year 2 in Korea.

Life goes on

Well, there hasn't been a whole lot of excitement so far since we've been back. Sunday we woke up at like 4AM because of jet lag so we went to Homeplus at 7AM and later in the day Costco to restock our kitchen. Since Tuesday we have been in training sessions for school and also been working to get ready for the first day of class which is Monday.

We have been having a great time hanging out with our returning staff friends and meeting some new staff. I feel like community has been especially awesome since we have been back. We have really had some fabulous time with our friends. We think that we have some quality new hires too. My HS math partner from last year Kevin Wendling is our new principal so I have a new Kevin in my math life, Kevin Arndt. He is going to be a solid dude to work with.

One fun activity that we do have coming up is that we are going to meet up with a friend that Bonnie formerly student taught with. He is working at and English tutoring center in Seoul. We are going to go catch a baseball game with him and hang out. It will be good times.

First day of school is Monday... ready or not...

safe and sound

And we're back in Korea. We actually had a lot more luggage than this but Tom is an unpacking machine and already tackled a few things before I was able to get a picture.

The flights went really smoothly and there was hardly any turbulence, which was great. The bad news of our traveling was that we got stuck in our plane in Atlanta going to Seoul for two hours on the runway. This isn't a good way to start your 14.5 hour flight. When it was all said and done we were in the plane for 17 hours. Yuck. Another bummer...the in flight entertainment system was broken. So there were no movies to entertain us. It wasn't ideal, but we made it safely and that's what counts.