My Kids :)

Thus ends week 12 of my first term at Chungdahm. The kids are going crazy because these are the last two weeks of the term so it doesn't really "count." I've been pretty easy on them this week, though, especially on speaking English during their class project time. Usually I go around during project time saying, "English!" "English only!" "What's rule number one?" This keeps some measure of English going on. This week, though, they have a different kind of project that has them working for 40 instead of 25 minutes so I go around and ask them questions about it and they speak English when I'm around, but I'm not taking points off for speaking Korean at this point. It's the end of the term. I'll give them a break. :)

The faculty manager asked teachers to take pictures of the kids working on projects for promotional stuff. Well, my old boss at BYU Creative Services will agree when I say I am not the most amazing photographer (no matter how many times he tried to teach me... poor guy... they probably just finished putting up Christmas decorations at the store), but I did get a few pictures of my kids working and now I can post them here for you all to see how adorable my kids are.







The week before, we had a different project for them to do as well called the "Book Polo Competition." I think that's a strange name, whoever came up with that. Kids were given a prompt and then had to write a 200 word story finishing the prompt. After that, they drew a picture illustrating their story. My kids got, "If I had a magic carpet, could go anywhere in the world and do anything, I would..." It was pretty fun. I had kids going to America to visit Teacher (that's me!), kids going to space and meeting aliens, video games, dinosaur times, one kid even decided to go to Hell.



All of the teachers got together and voted on the best story for each level. One of my kids won! I am so excited. Go, Lily! There was a little bit of confusion where they weren't sure which class "Lily" was in (the papers got all shuffled up after being turned in), but I was able to confirm that it was, in fact, MY Lily that won. MY Lily. Not Rachel's Lily. MY Lily. MY student. ;)

So that's school. Yep. It's going pretty good except for kids going crazy because what they do in class doesn't really "count." I'll be happy when the term is done and I can have another fresh start with a new group of students. I should be getting my schedule for next term tomorrow. Exciting!

Oh, remember how in my last post I mentioned that I had strained my voice. Well, I never really had a chance to rest it this week what with being a TEACHER and all. My throat hurt pretty bad on Thursday. On the way home from work on Wednesday, I stopped and bought some herbal tea to help with the throat. It's not too bad, either. I usually really don't like tea (bleck), but this pomegranate tea is pretty good.

I even went prepared with vocabulary to make sure I got herbal tea instead of black tea (I can't drink black tea):

Herbal tea: 초본 차 Chobon cha

Black tea: 홍차 Hong cha

It was fun playing charades and pointing to a box I knew was black tea (it said so in English) and saying "hong cha... ahnday" (black tea... no) then pointing to another box and asking, "chobon cha?" And that is the story of how I came to drink copious amounts of herbal pomegranate tea.



And today I woke up and HEY! I can't talk! D:

Other than a sore throat, I'm doing pretty good. New term starting soon, laundry is done and drying, and the apartment is *pretty much* clean right now. Good times. Today, I plan on not talking at all (please let me be able to talk comfortably tomorrow!!) and laying down in bed to watch "Cape Fear" with Robert De Niro. We'll have to see which is better: the old one with Gregory Peck *swoon* or the awesomely scary Robert De Niro.