The Joy of little things from home well "home'ish"

So today I had the pleasure of going across the border.. and by that I mean I went to the army base to watch a baseball game.

While I was there I ate Taco Bell, (whilst arguing why women are just as good as men) bought an ENGLISH magazine and finally very happily bought some Rieces Pieces!!!!! It literally felt like I was in some sort of outlet mall in the states.. So surreal!!!

I even came back with some American money from the Taco Bell guy who gave it to me as change.. So strange.. Anyways... its just weird how small things like candy and an English magazine can make my day..

Thought I would share!!!

PEACE!!

I KNEW giraffes existed!!! Take that Jack Hanna!!??

Lately things that I can’t understand or explain have been happening. A few weeks ago a friend of mine went through something that I couldn’t even imagine going through. His life literally changed in an instant and it really made me stop and think about my own. I have been thinking about life, what I am doing, why I am doing it and where I am going in the future. It made me get off my ass and make things happen. I got in touch with people I hadn’t talked to in a while. I also started thinking about what was missing in my life. I am now on a mission to solve any problems I had/have and in the end try and be better.

All my life I have relied on people to motivate me, love me and help me. I have since realized that I have to rely on myself, motivate myself and love myself. (cliché and cheesy yes, yes I know) It may have taken me 27 year and countless broken hearts and tears to figure this out but I think I finally have. I find myself making a lot more “me time”, making plans for things that I really want to do, and keeping busy by myself. I used to be worried about weekends and found them to be lonely when I wasn’t with someone. All of a sudden this is no longer the case. I like my weekends. I like having the choice to go out, or stay in work out and eat a grape fruit. (Which was my decision tonight haha) My second trip to Korea has just begun and it is going to be so different from the last. I have different goals and I am older and in a different place.

A lot has happened so far but as my dear friend spicy said in one of the countless conversations we’ve had about my life. “If so much can happen in the first two months, think about how much more can happen in the months to come.” This is so true, and when he said it he probably didn’t realize it affected me so much. (Thanks my friend!!)

I am constantly trying to figure out why things happen, where the justice is in life, why people get hurt and why we are put in situations we don’t understand and sometimes can’t control. I am sure these questions will never get answered and they will bother me forever. Although, because of these questions, and the recent happenings in my life, I am motivated to make changes to myself and my lifestyle.

Which brings me to my 8-week plan:

I am saying this out loud so that just like "a giraffe" it will "exist". Now I CANT take it back or jump ship! I bought myself some work out equipment, healthy food and am determined to feel GREAT by July 1st!!!

My 8-week plan consists of working out every day with some work out videos I found online. Not eating out all the time, and cutting down totally on food that I don’t need. The snacks they give us at school are killing me. Especially when the rich Korean moms send us cake ALL THE TIME!! No more cake for me, summer is coming! I am so serious about this that I didn’t go out drinking tonight, instead I worked out and ate a grapefruit. Wow that sounds a lot sadder now that I wrote that down… What the hell is happening to me lately! The Meghan you knew and loved is apparently gone haha. Well not totally. If I give up junk food I can still get drunk during the week right? Hello? is this thing on??? Anyways I thought I would write this down so that everyone knows, and I can’t make up excuses!
I also want to write down my goals… these are just a start..

Goal number 1: no junk food for 2 weeks. (Then I can indulge on May 21st if I wish)
Goal number 2: don’t eat out next week, go home to eat a healthy meal.

Okay sorry for no blogs lately.. Stay tuned for my expose on KOREAN MOMS!!!!

Soccer, Suwon, and Special Children...

So I started a couple blogs in the last couple weeks but for some reason never posted em. So here is my come back... you ready???

My friends and I went to Suwon yesterday to check out the Fortress.. Its nice to get out of Seoul and do something different every once and a while. I have wanted to get away for the past couple weeks so I was happy to have this opportunity. Yesterday was SOOO fun! great weather, great laughs, great people great pictures taken. We even tried "Bondeagi" - those gross smelling silk worms that I had been eyeing the entire year i was here before. I also want to try live octopus but that will have to happen another time. When I am here I like to keep busy. At home I could sit in front of the tv or my computer all day long.. Here I feel motivated to go places, do things, be someone different then who was before. I guess this is a good thing right? I want every weekend to be filled with new experiences and great memories.. thats what its all about right?

FOOTBALL WOOT WOOT!!

So last week we went to watch the North Korea Vs. South Korea Soccer match. It was super fun and ended up being quite the drunken debacle for a lot of us. Which ended up making the next day not the best working day.. haha. Anyways, the stadium was loaded and full of cheering, druming and drunken fools yelling things in korean and english (sometimes) I took a bunch of videos.. Thats another thing that I promised myself this Seoul visit. Take more videos!!! they are so fun to watch later!!

Kids!!!

I have been here for a little over a month now, and my students are already TOTALLY different then when I first started teaching them. It truly is amazing how fast they learn and change.
My legacy with them will hopefully be giving them some sort of independance. When I leave them, they will feel confident enough to do their buttons up on their own, to open their juice boxes, chip bags and any other container on their own. I like to teach them how to do things on their own. I think its so important to do at a young age. I have been teaching them so many things that is NOT in the curriculum, that i sometimes wonder how i get the actual work books done at all.

Some of the kids that I found super annoying in the last couple weeks are starting to be killer kids. Anna had a lot of attitude before, but now she is listening more, wanting to help others and speaks really good english. SHe even understands sarcasm which is hilarious.

Eugene is a little girl who is super duper shy and would cling to me every day. She crys super easy and you have to watch her a lot and make sure she does her work. THis past week she has been finishing her work, talking more, laughing and making funny faces. I love it when she says "Teacher, what is DIS?" she is super adoarable. She used to kiss my arm a lot, and pett it the entire lesson. I try to get her to stop but i hink i am going to just accept it that i have an arm petter beside me. apparently her mother says that she just "likes me a lot" thats why she pets me every day haha.


Andrew is one of my favs. He is unique and a free spirit! when he is finished his work he smiles and shows me. he says things like "im too good at at this" "This is too easy". but he is also soo sensitive. One time we were working on dislikes and likes and he thought i said i disliked him. he started to bawl and thought i hated him. I felt so bad!! I hugged him a tone of times and told him that he was a good boy and that I loved him. poor little dude. Later i noticed that he does this with a lot of teachers, if they done praise him enough or he misunderstands them. I now know he just wants a hug and to be told that someone loves him. A little sad but really cute.
I taught the class how to make cubes the other day. From then on andrew says "teacher I want to make a cube" he loves his cubes! hes just so proud of the things he accomplishes and I cant help but be proud. "I DID IT" he always yells. He also likes to dance for the class. in the middle of a lesson he will get up and dance. the kids think hes funny, i think hes hilarious so, yeah i let him dance for a while. haha hes the best! He is also so inquisitive. Wants to know "why" for EVERYTHING. and as annoying as it could be, its actually not. He is just genuinly intersted in everything. I find myself teaching so many different hings to the students just because they are intersted and want to know about it.

Some funny andrew quotes:

Me: "carry on"
Monica: "what is carry on, is it from Canada?"
Andrew: "no its from Brazil!!"
Me: "um... okaaay?"

Me: "What do you like to do on your birthday?"
Andrew: "Teacher, I like sand."

Monica is such a special little one. She needs to be reassured about everything. Whether it is if shes good, or if her name is going into the Onyx box. She will tell the class if they are being bad, shes will help me explain to the class why we arent suppose to speak korean. She will try and copy me when i said "sit down please". She will run to her seat just so I can say "thank you monica for sitting down" She is such a little teachers pet, but shes super cute.

I have actually gotten a couple messages from parents saying that their kids speak or sing english at home and they are happy that their kids are doing well. I even got a "thanks for being a good teacher" from one of the parents. Things have been going well so far I think.

I was so worried in the beginning about behaviour management. If i was going to handle the class or not. I was so strict in the first couple weeks and it was the best idea ever. We can now have fun in class, be silly but when I say stop they do and when i speak they listen. I even try to speak quietly most of the day so that they have to really listen to my voice. I have not yelled at my kids once and I want to keep that going. I love the fact that they seem to repect me.


Anyways, this blog is extremely long so I will end it with some things that I am proud of my kids for learning this month.

- Asking a friend or look in their book to find the answer before asking me.
- to button their own buttons
- finger spacing, captials and periods in sentences
-opening their own juice containers
-cleaning up, pushing in chairs
-how to use a ruler
-being nice to eachother, helping eachother, sharing

This is a video of my class showing me what their Sign Language names would be.

What I have learned this week....

What have I learned this week......

I learned that I am very last minute when it comes to teaching and I do my best lessons when they are spur of the moment. I learned that many things happen when you least expect them too. Sometimes its good, sometimes its bad, sometimes its just annoying :) I learned that lately I have loved being on my own, and doing things alone. I learned that pretty much 80 percent of the koreans on the subway are watching TV on their cellphones. I learned to buy the right amount of wall paper before I start putting it up. I learned that I get very defensive when people try and critique my lessons when they didnt see the entire thing. I learned how to take the bus to school in the morning. I learned that my new LG phone friend's name is CJ. I learned that my "taxi korean" is better than ever!! (this means speaking korean to a taxi driver by the way.) I learned that when I dont have money is when i need to spend it the most.

Oh the pic above is from a store I went into on friday night. They are cupcakes for "white day" now white day is the second of the valentine day holidays. Valentines day the girl gives something to the guy. White day the guy gives somethign to the girl. So let me tell ya there were LOTS of women walking around with big teddys bears and flowers and candy and chocolate on saturday. Yikes!!! Koreans are in LOVE with LOVE!! Im surprised they didnt bust our their couple tee's too.

Yesteday was the big st paddys day celebrations here in Seoul. basically every foreinger went to Hyewa drank in public places and cleared all convienence stores out of beer. It was a spectical indeed. Than every single one of those drunken fools piled into two different bars in Seoul. It was mayham. but i did have a killer outfit!! and thats always a plus.

Next weekend me and some girls are apparently going down south to this "fighter pilot" party. Bunch of hawt fighter pilots, long train ride, crazy antics.. YEAH i think i'll go :)

I seriously can not believe that Ive only been here for 2 weeks. It feels like I honestly never left. There are so many things I want to do. Today I am going to Insadong to check out the sights. have a little walk around Seoul with a friend I think.. it seems like its sunny so it should be good.

Talk to ya later :)

The NeW Me....

So.... Before I start my update I will say this... At the end of my time here in Seoul I will own about 50 million wigs!!! Yes we all know my obsession with wigs. but the ones here are soo much more fun and so much less money! The picture above is of me last night where i wore my new blue wig to a 80's party. It was a hit and If i could I would wear that thing every day. Oh i also got myself a pair of fake perscription glasses.. you know the ones that make you look smart? Anyways in a nutshell.. the above picture is what I wish I could look like every day. THE END!

So this week was intense.. spent a lot of money on needs that come up in the first month of living somewhere... which means I am going to be broke in a couple weeks for sure! Also I got my first case of food poisoning.. UGH!! not that you want to know but on monday night I was up all night puking and got about one hour sleep. I than went into work the next day feeling TERRIBLE. it was the day before the kids came so I literally had to be there.Anyways other than 2 days of gross sickness my first week was good. My class is called Onyx class and the kids are really smart! they use full sentences are are really eager to follow rules!! I call them my little robots :) I have a feeling this year wont be too stressful on the behaviour front. My favorite little one so far is Andrew. He is soo cute and totally a free spirit. We were playing a game in gym class and he told hte whole class.."im just too good for this game" I laughed so hard.. hes is super adorable. I have 7 girls and 2 boys in my class.

Okay sorry its short but I am heading to Costco...
later dudes :)

Im Here!!!

Okay so this is going to be short and sweet cause I have to work tomorrow but.. lets just say my first few days in seoul have been a whirl wind!!!

got to my new apt at 8:30 ish on thursday night.. Jen met me at the airport and i am so glad she did. She speaks Korean so it made my trip much easier. after a 15 hour trip you just dont want to think. So than we automatically went out for food and met my friend victoria who gave me a hair dryer and a blanket to sleep with. My room is super cute and it has a side room that i am using for my closet. So can I say walk in closet!!??

My roomate is great his name is chris and hes been helping me out a lot. Im not used to having someone around who will do things for you. So when i start pushing a wardrobe across my room alone, it kicks in that i can probably ask my 6 foot something roomie to help. haha.

So my first day in korea lasted from 7:30am to 1:30am. I was determined to beat jet lag, and honestly I think I did!! I got up and went to my school. Which is totally another blog cuase this place is amazing! Got there and met two of my co-workers who are from England. One from Burmingham and the other from London. They were great and they were asked to take me to the hospital for my "health check". We spent the day walking around Seoul and having loads of fun. My medical check was unpleasant to say the least but it had to be done. they checked my ears, eyes, teeth, blood and anything else you could think of.after this we went back to the school where i met my korean teacher assitant. Her job is to help me in the classroom. She was decorating my class for me. I will have to probably change some stuff tomorrow cuase shes very "linear" and I am definetly not. So we wil have to mix up the class a bit. Hope shes okay with that since she was probably working all weekend. eeep! So than i went out to dinner with Mike and Luke my new friends. We had some killer Galbi. mmmm korean bbq!!
After dinner i went over to my friends house where we drank sangrea and played rock band. I met a bunch of new people and it was such a great time.

The next day I had to get up reasonably early to go see my frineds old apt and steal some supplies for our apt. It went well and we picked out some stuff. My first saturday in korea was spent watching a movie in my bed. I basically just wanted a night to chill out since I had been going and going since i came. It was nice.

Today Chris and I moved half of the apt into our place. This may sound easy.. well it wasnt. We had to drag furniture, plates,cups, blankets and anything else you could think of up and down the little korean hills of iteawon. I got a good work out to say the least and I know my muscles are going to kill tomorrow. Than my new friend Mike came to see me and he came with me to Emart where I was going to get some stuff for my room. We ended up walking around Seoul having some kimbap, and going to a DVD Bang in meoyong-dong. than we came back he helped me rearrange my room and we played rock band with chris in his room. It was a full day but totaly fun!!!

I am having a great time so far and its only been a couple days. This is such a good thing for me. I am happy and dont feel culture shock at all. I feel so comfortable here its as if i never left. I have found some great new friends already and it looks like things are going to be good. I wil take some pics of our apt once its al purdy.

gunna go to sleep its my 2nd day of school.

love ya all.... having a blast!!

My Last Night in Canada for a while...

So here I am, still awake knowing that I have to be at the airport in about 5 hours. I decided on my last night here I would watch one of my favorite episodes of sex and the city. Its the one where Big leaves NYC, Carrie wears one of my FAVORITE outfits and Miranda has her baby.

It has such a great quote in it, and I thought it was very fitting right now.
I wanted to share it with you..

"It was official a new season had begun. Maybe our mistakes are what make our fate, without them what would shape our lives? Perhaps if we never veered off course we wouldn't fall in love, or have babies or be who we are. After all seasons change, so do cities, people come into your life, and people go but its comforting to know the ones you love are always in your heart and if your very lucky a plane ride away."

Love ya!
Megz

Ps. another word of wisdom.. coming from a girl who does a lot of goodbyes.. keep the hugs short people!!! Long hugs are the killers!! :)