Thursday, December 24, 2009

Why I Love My Job

I finally, finally, finally brought my camera with me to work today. About a month ago, I walked into a class I teach three days a week, and was greeted by a student who I swear had grown at least 5 inches over night. I realized I needed to quickly get my camera to work, otherwise all my uber-cute students would no longer be uber-cute, just kinda-cute. These pictures are from two of my favorite classes.

This is Candy (L) and Julia. Julia is one of my favorites. She's smart, but it's her dramatic, wild goofiness that I soak up class after class. Sometimes I just let her "perform" her craziness for the class (anything from re-enactments of Korean soap operas, to made up stories, to TV commercials). Then I perform my impression of her. As the Koreans would say: many, many, many laughter.

Peter (L) and Harry are in the same class with the girls. Poor Harry always wants to work and study. Too bad I'm his teacher.

Genius Julia (as she calls herself) decided it would be great to let her friend give her a hickey on her cheek. I nearly died when she told me, "teacher, friend on cheek, shhhshhhcchhhoo (vaccum, sucking noise)".

The three girls here (Lisa, Linda, and Jessica), and three boys below are my youngest. Just looking at these pictures makes me excited to get back to work and see them after Christmas break. I love them. Period.

James, Eric (centre) and Jack. Wild, wild children. I probably wouldn't love them as much if they were any different. They have pretty low English, so often the boys will jump out of their seats act out thoughts they have, or words they want to communicate (yes, then I teach it to them in English).

This is James again. He's the best. The Korean teachers joke he is our child. He's always in the office talking and goofing around with Thomas and I. So much love.

These and so many more children here make me consistently happy to go to work. Thankfully, they easily outweigh the dumb, idiot children I also have to deal with.

Christmas Time


One guess what movie I watched for my decorating inspiration: Elf. I had a fun couple nights cutting up all the snowflakes, I'm an expert now. A snowflakspert.


Yes, we actually have presents under the tree, those are from my family, there have been more added since!


If it looks like he hates wearing them, it's because he does. But scrappin' crappin' he looks cute as a button.



Thomas decked out in the traditional (Guthrie side) tacky Christmas bottoms (penguins drinking beer).

It's Christmas Eve here and we are sippin' cider and watching a movie. I have part of the turkey in cooking for tomorrow and it smells just like home. Only challenge will be resisting the urge to taste test before Christmas dinner. And now, off to baste.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Special Day?

The conversation began:

Christy: Oh my gosh, it's 12 days till Christmas!
Thomas: Yes. Do you know what is only 6 days before Christmas?
Christy: Someones birthday?
Thomas: No.
Christy: Did we plan something? A movie? Is someone coming over?
Thomas: No.
Christy: I can't think of anything?!
Thomas: Try a little harder.
Christy: I have no clue!?
Thomas: Think.
Christy: Seriously, don't be a tuna, tell me, I don't know.
Thomas: Something important happened around this time.
Christy: Thomas, freekin' just tell me!
Thomas: It's our anniversary.
Christy: Oh crap.
Thomas: Yeah, I forgot until Kyla mentioned it to me tonight.

At least we both know neither of us has high expectations when it comes to celebrating being together. Correction: celebrating the specific day a piece of paper declared we'd be seeing a lot of each other over the next 85 years (no comments on what age that will put me at, thank-you).