September 20, 2011

Clare, What does your house look like?




MY STONE BED!!!










The moment you've all been waiting for x3... pictures of my house!!!





Here is the view from the front street













Here are my chickens!!



















This is my room












September 19, 2011

Poop, Puberty, Lotto & Zits

Let me lead you through our dinner conversation.

backup information: Last night my dad had a dream about a snake. (good to know I'm not the only one who talks about my dreams right?)

Actually, I guess most of this conversation was after dinner had ended/ was ending, but at the end of dinner Sol EE started walking around and making funny gestures such as running into the table with his stomach or rocking backwards in his chair. He then ran out of the room into the bathroom exclaiming "something something in korean something sansengnim (teacher in Korean)" My parents were laughing and told me Sol was breaking wind and didn't want me to be around it so he ran into the bathroom. While he was in there they started talking about puberty for no reason at all just that they wanted to learn how to pronounce it. I don't know what puberty had to do with anything but it was definitely talked about for at least 5 minutes.

This lead to the discussion of "stool." My dad kept saying "do you know stool?" "do you know stool?" and I'm like yes but why are we talking about backless chairs. So I wasn't getting it and he had to bring out his phone dictionary that said something along the lines of "excrement, stool, shit" and I'm like ohhhhhhh that stool... he kept saying it was the hospital term. "do you know urine?" Yes I do dad. "do you know blood?" yes. Apparently these are all hospital terms. However, talking about stool got him excited BECAUSE it reminded him of his dream that he had last night about the snake.

Host dad apparently looked up on the internet at work what it meant to have a snake in your dream and discovered that it meant he had lost money. He then informed me that taxes were taken out of his pay check last week and that churchee (church pronounced by a Korean man) had also taken his money. Therefore, the "survey" was very good. I think he meant survey to be the dream interpretation. Apparently while looking up snake dreams he came across the idea that having "stool" in your dream is the best thing that can possibly happen to you and that you will win the lotto the next day.

According to Host dad here is a ranking of good things in dreams that will let you win the lottery the next day:
Stool
Pig
Dragon
Shaking hands with President/King

He then showed me a picture of some numbers scribbled down on a piece of paper.
3 12 1 5 18 8

Then asked me, "do you know the importance of these numbers?" ummmm.... "I guess 5 18 is my birthday?" He ROLLED HIS EYES AT ME then said

a,b,c= 1,2,3 3=c. abcdefghijkl=123456789101112 l=12 a=1 CLA then 5 18 for my birthday and the 8 is for something that I still don't know but he told me he's waiting until he has a dream with STOOL IN IT so he can play those numbers in the lottery. I guess host dad is going to go win the poop lottery.

After that discussion died down my mom decided to point out my zits. Thanks host mom, great cue for me to leave the table and cry myself to sleep and write this blog.

AND SOL JUST WALKED INTO MY ROOM AND GAVE ME HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE AND HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS. I love this house.


Shopping in Seoul

I've been meaning to blog but my internet in my house is down!! I'm currently in a coffee shop enjoying a lovely vanilla latte on this COLD FALL DAY. That's right. it is no longer a million degrees here which is PERFECT because I just bought a beautiful red fall jacket in Seoul for only 30,000 won!! (About $30) Too bad I forgot it on my way to school today.... there's always tomorrow!

So last weekend I stayed home on Friday night then left early on Saturday to go to Seoul and meet up with my friend Leslie. In Seoul we went crazy shopping with our first pay check! We worked out our frustrations with retail therapy and I feel much better now.

food dopoki.JPG.jpg


After a day of shopping we went to our friend Stephen's (Stephen used to be a member of the OCT and now works as the ETA coordinator throughout the year listening to people's housing problems so we get some good stories) apartment and made dopoki a korean dish that is spicy and usually eaten when it's cold and rainy outside. While it wasn't raining it was still delicious because Leslie made it from scratch :) We watched the movie Chicago together because it's Leslie's favorite... I guess it's fair since she made us dinner.

After dinner and a movie it was like 1am so we went to sleep then woke up at 9. Stephen decided to come to Cheongju with me and Leslie had to meet her uncle for lunch. Stephen and I got on a bus and headed back to Cheongju where we went to church with Andrea, Izumi and Jake. Apparently it's the only English speaking church in Cheongju and it's rather conservative. Let's just say I didn't stay in the service for very long.

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After mass we took a bus to downtown Cheongju together to eat lunch. We had a dish that included sea food (this turned out to be fish eggs, the same kind my brother takes out of fish at the breakfast table and says "teacher fish baby" while rubbing the area where is would be uterus is and eating the sack. Oh, I'm usually eating seaweed while this happens. Try eating seaweed soup while someone is talking about eating fish eggs right after you wake up and tell me what kind of day you're going to have.

Anyway, It had fish eggs, beef, vegetables and noodles. Apparently the meal is sometimes also served with rice. A bowl of steaming water with fish eggs is served then you are given a platter of vegetables you add in. After that you add meat and wait for it to cook. After you eat a fair amount of that food you add in the noodles. It was really very good and we picked out all the fish eggs (that's right, everyone there.)

After breakfast we of course needed some dessert so we went to a coffee shop called bonjung. We passed a cafe called the New Yorker which a lot of westerners go to... we speculate because the name is homey. And I get a text from our friend Luke who is also working in Cheongju as an ETA so he met up with us too. Ekatarina (my roommate from Jungwon) met us at the cafe and we got a 10 piece cake that had a slice from every different cake. It was amazing we had a bite of each kind.

After the cake Jake had to go home but Jessica (as you can tell I met a lot of people) showed up. To kill time before dinner (yes we ate a lot) we went into the store Uni Qlo which is a Japanese franchise that is similar to H&M. Luke who is 195 cm tall (really tall) found a pair of black skinny jeans that fit him and was really excited. Izumi got some purple pants, Andrea got some jeans... etc. What I thought was really cool is that when you try on the clothes they tailor it for you so when you check out they take your pants and hem them for you and you come back in an hour and you have a pair of perfectly fitting jeans!!!

While waiting for the jeans we went to get Kalbi which is bbq ribs korean style. I usually don't like this meal in the setting of a cafeteria or my home because the bones are still in it and when you pull out the bones there is this fatty circle. It also doesn't have very many spices or marinades but at this restaurant... oh it was glorious.

You go in and there are 3 items on the menu. Cold naengmyeon, hot naengmyeon or bibimbap. All of these come with a serving of Kalbi. The Kalbi was amazing. No bones but perfectly seasoned. It was so good. It was also really cheat like 4,900 won. ($5 which is less than the vanilla latte I am currently drinking) Naengmyeon is a korean noodle that looks like this:

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The restaurant encourages you to eat the naengmyeon and kalbi together. I ordered bibimbap so I didn't do that but it still tasted amazing.


After dinner Stephen had to go back to Seoul. Luke went home and Izumi, Andrea, Jessica, Ekatrina and I went to go check out a CAT CAFE.


A cat cafe is where you go and there are cats roaming around that you can play with. Actually only Izumi and I went up to it because we wanted to see what it was like. There were just cats roaming around and girls that would kidnap them and play with them at their tables. It was 8,000 won for a table (per person) and you get a free drink. We didn't really like cats that much so we went to a different cafe that was like a tree house.


The cafe had different cozy lofts for you to go in after ordering drinks. All the lofts were taken so we sat underneath them amongst pillows and blankets. It's essentially every kids ideal bedroom. I was soooooooo cozy and I had rosemary tea. It was basically the perfect end to the day.


I took the bus home and had a good walk after eating SO MUCH. I went to bed at like 10pm I was so tired. Then I woke up this morning thinking it was Sunday... much to my dismay it was Monday. Luckily I had my Friday Rebecca Black lesson to look forward too. I started regretting making a lesson plan with this song because I have to listen to it like 4 times a class and I have to teach it 12 times. For those of you who want a reminder of what the music video is like here you go. If it makes you guys feel better my unit that I am on right now is weekdays and scheduling so the first part is perfect. Plus they get a glimpse into the ordinary life on young jewish rich girls. It's a plus for everyone.





September 8, 2011

Me and hostbro

I thought my brother was defacing the American flag on his gameboy but then I realized he was making it so he could take a picture of himself with his head in the middle.


September 7, 2011

I don't want to jinx it BUT...

I really like teaching here. Sure, my first lesson was a little choppy but it got better after that and my lessons keep improving.

In 4th grade we are doing "Are you sure?" and Scheduling and I got a kid that doesn't know any English to participate!

In 3rd grade we are doing "This is..." and "S/He's my..." and I pushed them to learn "This is my ______, _______" while at the same time convincing them my boyfriend was Korean pop idol G-Dragon.

My advanced club classes are great too. We played charades for 4th grade and in 5th grade I got to learn about what influences them. (I don't teach regular 5th grade classes but I had a lot of fun with them because they really know English and it's fun to be funny with them).

Hope it only gets better :)

September 1, 2011

What comes after eating a cow's knee?

Getting locked inside your school.

That's right ladies and gentlemen, after working hard overtime (aka after 5pm) I was getting ready to wrap up my last powerpoint, turn off my itunes and shut down my computer. I collected my things leaving my classroom thinking "how lovely it is that I live in a city that they can just leave classroom doors unlocked and no one comes to steal the high tech projectors and TVs. Isn't that just wonderful!?!?!

5:34pm Heading down to my usual exit I noticed that there were no cars in the driveway, no one around the school.

5:36pm I get to the doors and push... nothing. hmmm well it isn't a main exit or anything so I'll just go through the cafeteria... not. Cafeteria doors are locked too. Looks like I'm going back to the 2nd floor in order to leave.

5:38pm try another exit... locked.

5:39pm contemplate calling Leslie to inform her of this hilarious situation in which I am locked in the school. Then decide that I should call my co-teacher... but she lives an hour away so that would just be silly. I haven't even tried to main doors yet.

5:41pm Reach main doors, also locked. Someone's got it in for me. At this point I'm thinking, "I guess I could just sleep here?" That's literally what came to mind first. Then I realized that it's not college anymore and if you get locked in the humanities building you can just save it for a funny story later but now I have an ohma who would come and break the doors down with a fire hydrant just so I could eat cat eyes or whatever is for dinner tonight.

At that point I realized I needed to problem solve it so I checked the windows... they were locked but that was easily undone. Looking around for cameras I heaved myself up in my SKIRT and slipped outside the window. Luckily none of the kids playing outside saw this. Unluckily it had been right through a spider web.

Yep. At 5:30pm Clare Hubbard was locked inside of her Korean school. Guess I don't get paid for overtime.