There's a first time for everything

Thursday we celebrated our school's first graduating class. It was a pretty awesome experience because Bonnie and I (and the rest of our great staff) have been working with these kids for the past three years to get them to this point. I taught over a third of the senior class math and many of those kids I had for the past 3 years.

The kids and their parents took a pretty big risk coming to our school since we had no product to offer other than that of our sister school which planted GSIS. It was great to get to celebrate their accomplishments and successes. We have students headed to some quality universities in the states. A couple examples: Ohio State, UC Berkley, Wash U (STL), Cornell, Rice, Northwestern, and many more.

Here are some sights from the big day. Graduation was supposed to be outside but the threat of rain moved it into the gym. It was still a good set up though.

The graduates:

A special musical performance by our music teacher:

The happy parents snapping pictures:

The graduates lining the stairs up to the school after the ceremony:

Peter K gave Bonnie those flowers as a thank you:

Jessice Wendy Won Young Park (long story) one of my outstanding math students:

Peter C. We both got to teach Peter for the past 3 years.

Allen, one the the senior starters for our basketball team:

Jennifer who went to Nepal with us twice, Bonnie coached her for 3 years, and she was a student of mine:

A couple picks of us trying to look nice together.

I really can't express accurately how awesome it was to get to be a part of this and see our hard work over the past 3 years pay off in a tangible way.

Senior Week

This is a really special week at our school because tomorrow our school will host its first ever high school graduation!  Leading up to graduation our seniors have had a lot of fun activities to commemorate their final week at GSIS.  On Monday we had an awards assembly followed by a Senior Lunch.  Tom and I did not intend to go to the lunch because we thought it was just for students but we just happened to be by the gym where the luncheon was being held when some of the moms were looking for senior teachers to join in the celebration.  Talk about being in the right place at the right time! The food was great and the set up was very classy (see pictures below). 

After the luncheon there was a yearbook signing extravaganza in the amphitheater.  While we were hanging out and writing HAGS ("have a great summer") in yearbooks some students gave out a free CD they created!  It was pretty cool!  

The past two days the seniors went on a retreat at a beach a few hours away from here and tomorrow will be the big day of graduation.  It's such an exciting and historic time for our school.  

Mr. Moon

One thing that I thought about doing since moving here is getting a suit made. I had not done it up to this point in time because I never knew who would be a reliable and reasonably priced tailor. Well over the past year or so I began hearing good things about Mr. Moon. He runs a shop just outside the main gate of Osan Air Base so he knows how to make suits for foreigners. About 3 weeks ago Bonnie and I paid him a visit. I picked out fabric for two suits and he took the measurements. A week later I came back in for a fitting. It was crazy because the suit was in such a rough outline of what it would be. That is the two pictures below with Mr. Moon's helper checking his work.

This past weekend Bonnie and I went back to see Mr. Moon and pick up the finished products. I thought overall they turned out pretty nice. The one below is a dark grey three-button, two-piece suit.

This one is a two-button, three-piece suit, that is black with very light white pinstripes.

Mr. Moon makes sure to leave his mark on every suit he makes. Though it kind of looks like he spelled my last name "Meger."

The best thing about Mr. Moon is that the suits are pretty darn good and the total for both was $350. Bonnie had a bridesmaid dress altered to fit her pregnant body and three other dresses converted to short sleeves for a grand total of $40. Thank you Mr. Moon. Thank you.

party time

May 20th was my 26th birthday!  On my actual birthday we had school and then I had a meeting until 6pm, so the actual day of my bday was uneventful.  A few highlights did occur at school though.  During my first block class as I walked in the entire class sang Happy Birthday to me and when they got to the part where they're suppose to put my name in they sang, "Happy Birthday to you and your baby..."  I told them today better not be my baby's birthday! Also, because I had a late meeting after school some friends in my department surprised me with a cake! It was really fun.  After my meeting, I got to eat Subway with Tom.  You may be thinking...that's not very special for a birthday, but getting Subway is a very special treat if you live in Korea!!!  It's only like the 4th time we've ever gotten Subway here, which may become more regular now that Subway has moved in a few miles from our place.

Saturday the birthday celebrations continued! Tom and I went out for a great breakfast, we watched a movie at home, we did NO WORK, and then we went out with friends for dinner.  It was so fun.  Here are some pictures from Saturday evening.

Me (30 weeks) right before we went out.  It's getting harder and harder to find outfits to wear.  :-)

We went out to a place called "Gecko's." It's like a Western Bar and Grill. 

The crew preparing to order:

The great view outside the restaurant (we were on the 9th floor of a building). 

Cake Time!!!! Tom got me a Baskin Robbins cake. It rocked.

I think I just realized I forgot to make a wish...

It was a really fun night of hanging out with friends.  I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.  We have less than two weeks of school left, so we're trying to soak up all the time we can with our friends because some of them will not be returning to Korea next year.  I left the evening being reminded of just how blessed we are by our community here.

brownies!

The GIN (Global Issues Network) club that I sponsor had our last meeting of the school year this past week, so I decided to make some brownies to celebrate a successful year.  In general, Korean cuisine is not as sweet as it is in America so boxes of brownie or cake mix are not readily available in stores.  As a result, every time I go to the States I make sure to buy a few boxes of Betty Crocker Brownie Mix so I can make a quick dessert for special celebrations, like our last GIN meeting.

Since the end of the school year is so busy only a handful of our GIN boys came to the meeting:

And they demolished the brownies!  However, one of the boys seemed reluctant to take a tasty brownie treat and when I specifically asked him if he wanted one he said, "I don't know. I've never had a brownie before."

Me: "WHAT?!! You've NEVER had a brownie????"
Student: "I don't really like sweet things."
Me: "Well, this box of brownie goodness came straight from America so please try your first ever American Brownie."
Student: "Okay...I'll try one...."

Student: "Mrs. Meyer, this is the best brownie I've ever had!"

Thank you Betty Crocker.

Wrapping Up

We have about 2.5 weeks left in the school year and that means things are starting to get wrapped up. I had my last grad school class this past weekend and will "graduate" on June 12th. That means I will get most of my weekends back next year! I say "graduate" because I won't actually be in attendance. Bonnie is in a wedding on June 4th in Columbia, MO and I am a leaving early with her since she will be at 32 weeks at that point in time. There was no way I was going to have my pregnant wife make a 24 hours journey on her own.

All that I have left for grad school is one 6-ish page paper for the class I just finished and my defense of my project document (similar to a thesis). My defense will be done via ooVoo (similar to skype) since I will be back in the US. I just sent what I think is my completed project document to my supervising professor. It ended up being 68 pages, 15900 words, 84, 622 characters, and 98,583 characters with spaces. I have never in my life put together anything remotely close to that big.

If I have learned one thing from this project document experience it is that I have no desire to write a book. I can't wait to be officially done!

Korean Fastfood

Although Korea does have its share of McDonald's, more often than not the fastfood people prefer in Korea looks more like this:

At this little eatery you can just grab your food at the open window or go up to the second floor to get a quick bite to eat.  At a place like this many people would get something called Kimbap, which is like a Korean version of sushi, but Tom and I actually prefer a few other items.  In front of Tom is "donkasu" which is a fried pork cutlet covered in a special gravy and served with rice.  In the giant bowl is one of my favorites, "cheesey ramen."  Let me just say, Korean ramen is way better than the little packs you buy at the grocery store in the states, especially when there is a slice of processed cheese on top! :-)

 Then we also like to share "mandu," which is a dumpling filled with meat and other vegetables.

Together, Tom and I can demolish these three dishes for around $11US dollars.  Korean fastfood is so cheap and good!

Aussie Pies

A few weeks back Tom and I decided to be adventurous and check out a new restaurant (or new to us anyway) called Jesters. Jesters serves something called "Aussie Pies."  We had never heard of such a thing, but they are about the size of a hamburger and there are numerous options of what the pie can be filled with.  It's basically like a handheld chicken pot pie in the States, but with more variety.

Since we never had these before Tom and I tried a few different types.  We went for the "Spud Deluxe" (filled with potato, bacon, and cheese), the "Dr. Pepper" (pepper steak with some sort of sauce), the "Pavarotti" (like chicken pot pie), and for dessert we had Apple Custurd.

Here are all the different choices in the store:

This is one of the pies up close:

Tom giving it a try:

 The inside looks totally gross!

 This one was the Spud Deluxe.  It looks disgusting, but was really good.  A consistent pregnancy win has been potatoes.

This picture of me reminds me of the villain in Captain Planet who always had her hair covering one of her eyes:

Overall we felt like the Aussie pies were a win! All four of the pies we tried were great, and there were "No Nasties" as the sign in their store promoted.  Thank you Australia for a delicious treat.

the royal wedding

I know I am super slow in posting this, but I wanted to share my experience in watching the Royal Wedding.  I'll be honest, I didn't really care too much about it ahead of time and accidentally stumbled upon watching it, but I'm really glad I did!  There was a BBQ at our school to celebrate Anzac Day, which is an Australian and New Zealand Holiday (kind of like Memorial Day in the States).  Tom and I stopped by the end of the BBQ and there was a crowd around the TV; apparently we came at a perfect time to watch the Royal Wedding! The reason this was especially neat was because we got to watch it with Canadians, Australians, and Kiwi's (kiwi=a person from New Zealand), which are all a part of the Commonwealth of Nations (formerly the British Commonwealth).  So the Queen is their Queen! They were all really into it, and even brought along flags to show their support.   They also were super knowledgeable on the royal family and educated us on all the people and rituals.  It was a really memorable experience (and I didn't have to wake up super early to watch it like my American friends).

Everyone transfixed on the TV.

 I love that in this one you can see people waving Aussie flags!

Cheering for when we got to see the dress:

Mother's Day

I had an unexpected gift from my husband today; he brought me flowers for Mother's Day! He said even though our little one isn't born yet he still wanted to get me a little something to celebrate the day.  What a guy! This week we also celebrated hitting the 28 week mark, which means we've arrived at the third trimester.   So far everything is still going well. 

I don't say it enough, but I have one awesome mom!  Mom, now that I'm pregnant and am getting ready to have a kid-o I feel like I have a whole new level of appreciation for all that you've done for me.  Thanks for going through the morning sickness, the smelly diapers, taking me to/from countless practices, helping me plan a wedding, giving my dog a home when he needed one, and I'll thank you in advance for all the motherly advice you'll give me after Little Meyer is born.  Happy Mother's Day!