And now the News

So...a little birdy has told me that you all want updates.

Well here they are.

Chistmas

Well the party went as well as can be expected with only two days of planning. Granted, there were no fires/injuries/calamities that anyone can account for, so, it went well. Luckily, I didn't have to try and teach the little hellians how to do that hip-hop dance to silent night. Hell, they couldn't even remember how to do the small hand-motions to Santa is Coming to Town, let alone try and remember a complicated dance routine. But, I think the high-light of she show was when we all had to sing Deck the Halls, and well...NO ONE but Kate knew the words after the first verse. So..we all sang the Fa La La La La La La La Las while she sang the rest of the song.

I'm sure the parents found that slightly entertaining.

Let's See...

Oh and the Silent Night part was good, almost had a few hair fires, but we made sure that no child's hair was singed off. Couldn't be slacking infront of the parents. After the singing and what have you (I'm gonna completely skip the part where I had to stand in the middle of a circle and dance while the kids sang) Santa came.

Well Patrick dressed up as Santa that didn't fool a single kid. Seriously, these kids knew. All they kept saying was Santa Patrick-Teacher! But the kids were happy none the less. They got presents, some of them bigger than the child receiving them. All-in-all it turned out to be a good day.

Colleen came to visit me Christmas weekend too! It was great. She bought me an iPod for an X-mas gift and we went to go see the family in Seoul. It was nice to see them all again. Of course, since I hadn't seen them in like 3 or so years...things have definately changed. One being that Yun Su and her brother shot up. Man. I feel short compared to them. And only three years ago were they tiny little whelps. The others look about the same. And I can assume that Yun Cho looks the same as his brother, Yun Ho, as he's in Russia at the moment. Aunt cooked us great food...I love her cooking. Almost stole one her cats and brought it home with me. It was adorable. A little black and white cat...kinda looked like Big Foot. But..alas, my happiness was not allowed. Yun Su wouldn't let me take the cat back. *sigh*

Things from there got a little un-eventful. Jade and Kerri left my kindergarden class because their parents didn't want another student to join because they hated her parents. Yes, I lost two kids because thier parents were acting like kids.

New Year's

Well nothing really to report there aside from the fact that on New Year's Eve's Eve I got completely smashed. Like...I hadn't been that drunk in at least 2 or 3 years. I don't remember alot of the night. I know we went out to Karaoke...and I think I fell there...then we managed to make it to some club, where there were guys stripping on the stage. At some point they opened the ceiling and fake snow poured in. I remember this part...cause I was to the point where I was sick and crabby from drinking and loathed the fact that they were letting in snow. Mind you it really wasn't cold enough for snow outside. Hm...New Year's itself was rather un-eventful. I went out with a few friends, didn't drink much, stayed out til about 5 am when I called it quits and went home to sleep. Had to work the next day. Yea, that's right. I had to work the day after New Years. AND! Only the afternoon classes. Which was annoying cause I originally only had 1. Nice and easy work. Then they dumped others on me. Bastards.

Hmm...

Next would be Lunar New Year's

Okay. So Korea doesn't really care about the changing of the years. It's all about Lunar New Year's here...or better known as Chinese New Year's. It was nice. I got a a 5-day holiday. Paid for too. However...what sucked was we hadn't gotten paid on time in January. And didn't get paid until a week and a half later. Can you imagine how pissed I was? Seriously. I only had maaaayybee $30 to go off of, or about 50,000 won. Yea. Not too happy. And I was also supposed to go skiing that weekend. The first social excursion that I would have had since......

Well a really long time. However, Eddy pulled through in the end and paid us on Friday. Which was good, cause I was leaving at 5 am Saturday morning. Oh, and by the by, this also happened to be the weekend that one of our teachers quit cause she couldn't take it anymore. I can't blame her really. Our manager yelled at her for having strep. Like it was her fault that she caught it from one of the kids.

Anyways...skiing was a blast. It had been about 6 or so years since I last went skiing, so needless to say, I was a bit rusty. But after the first few runs I had it down. It took us about 6 hours to get from Busan to ... where ever the hell we were. All I know is that when I woke up at the first rest stop, there was snow on the ground and it was COLD. I mean, almost Michigan cold. Which was a bit of a shock to my system. I was getting used to nice warm weather. In all honesty, I was kinda excited and...took pictures. Yes, I know, I hate snow. But I hadn't seen any real snow since last year (2007) and wanted proof that it did snow in Korea. Anyways, Our driver had no clue where he was going. We got lost at least...6 times before we finally parked at the resort.

Oh funny side story that slightly relates...

I met a girl here. No...not like that. It was funny, and shows what a small world it really is. So, wayyy back in November when I went to the Consulate in Chicago, I met a girl that was going to Busan too. I asked her where she would be working, but she didn't know. Hadn't given it a thought since I arrived. In all honesty, I completely forgot her after I left Chicago. However..2 months later on the ski trip...there she is. We randomly met again..and well have become great friends.

Back to the long story.

Skiing...great times. Cold as hell, but great. I only fell twice. Once when I was standing, and tried to turn aroung....yes, I know. I know. The other time, I was flying down the slope, and my glasses started to fog up. I couldn't see anything, considering the fog and blizzard, and well..there was just the tiniest of snow piles right in front of me. I hit it and went flying. Not too sure what happened for about 5 seconds because I blacked out. But I woke up as I hit the ground full-force, sliding on my back, backwards. Must have flipped somehow. In the process of sliding I saw one of my skis near me. Okay..not half bad. I got up laughing, considering that I hadn't broken anything. A miracle for me. But...getting up was unusual. I could stand up with no problems. Which meant I had lost both skis, not just one. It was a bit higher up the hill.

Needless to say, I got them back on, and continued down the hill, and kept skiing til about 10 that night. Surprisingly I didn't drink alot that weekend. Though, I did polish off the 5 bottles of wine I brought along with me. 2 of them were on the bus on our way back home. Met some great new people. It was seriously one of the best times I had in a long time.

Seeing as this is really long....I'll continue it in another post.