You know its good when....

This weekend I had big plans to go to Jindo and watch the waves literally parting the waters. I was really looking forward to it....but with car problems and all I didn't get to make it out there. BUT that doesn't stop me. I still wanted to have a good weekend....so, I went to an American like diner and had a pretty good almost "american breakfast." Then I wound up going ice skating and surprizing my friend Mikey who is training to be a professional skater. Afterward we drug Mikey out to dinner with us where we tried a restaraunt called Mies Factory. The waitors and the atmosphere was so good! I really enjoyed it! Then we ended our day with finding a beautiful cupcake shop. This was my first time to try a Korean Cupcake....I have to say, I really miss american desserts! lol, but it was still good!

That was my Sunday. Then Monday was pretty normal, But Tuesday was awesome. After work on Tuesday all of us went out to eat....and I mean all of us, including ALL of the April teachers too! We went to Traveler's Bar and Grill where one of our old teacher's there is a manager and we literally TOOK OVER! Then to make things even better, the only other people there were some teachers from the other CDI Hogwan, Susungu. I knew some of them, b/c I had trained with one of them named Austin. It was like a reunion for me! lol. I was informed that they only had about a sixth of their foreign teachers there and they still had about the same amount of teachers out there as all of us AND our Korean Staff! lol. I didn't really realize how small we really are till just then! lol. But any ways, back to my story. CDI had taken over. We ordered sooooo much food, we were using all of the tables, and took control of all of the games (pool table, darts, & foosball). We were there for hours. Slowly the other Susungu CDI left, then it was only our branch in the whole place. We closed them down! lol. We even saw some of the workers leave, b/c we had been there so long! We finally left a little after 2....and must I remind you its a Tuesday. Then since it's after midnight we take a taxi home and on the way the guy starts laughing at us and tells Mikey that he is a Hero, b/c he is the only guy with 3 girls! hahaha....little does he know.... LOL. Then he serenades us with the ABC's....and stops and asks us if we know that song! After we drop off Ange and Mikey and continue toward our apartment, he keeps trying to ask if we speak Korean or something else....but we finally make it to the apartment and he stops and says...."This BEST night, Laugh, 'haha' a lot!" I thought that was pretty great! An awesome end to our amazing time together, which leads me to say....You know it's good when you "laugh 'haha' a lot!!! "

"It's the End of the World As We Know It"

I can't beieve this. It really does feel like the movies. Within these last couple of years these natural disasters have just been growing more and more catastrophic. Massive snow storms, extreme monsoon seasons, numerous tornadoes, record breaking earthquakes, and now tsunamis. It's so scary to think about the friends that I have who were at ChristChurch, New Zealand when that Earthquake happened. Then just a couple weeks later on March 10th & 11th,2011 Earthquakes hitting Tokyo, Japan where I have friends and their families living nearby. THEN tsunamis sweeping away literally part of an entire Japanese city with 23 ft. waves. It's so hard to believe when I look at the pictures or watch the videos. Now there's another one hitting Hawaii. UGH! It seems impossible! Is the earth tired of us humans already?

I have no rights to these Photos,

they are only photos that I have found on Yahoo.

This top photo is of the Earthquake that hit Tokyo.

The lower photo is of the first waves that hit Natori,

Miyagi Prefecture in N.E. Japan on March 11, 2011.

Out with the Old

Well, it looks like the Winter semester is now over. Then I had Sunday to rest and relax....and....Now it is the Spring semester at school. I can only pray that with this new semester that I get a lot of patience for my new classes. Most of the students that I've had before are not my problem, because I have them trained to behave well in class. But I have just received a Sr. trouble- maker class from a teacher who has quit the school for various reasons...one of them was the difficulty with managing students in the classroom setting for the 3 hr. long class session. This group of kids which I have now received is going to be the death of me. First of all, they have no respect for me as their teacher...so this is going to be the hardest measure to overcome and with this I will truly need a lot of patience to keep me from literally exploding! Second, I don't know how to dicipline them to where they really care about it. Recently, Daegu has put into effect the all kids must be out of the Hogwon by 10PM sharp otherwise the school is penalized....our classes finish at 9:55PM and it used to be that we could just make the kids stay and retest after classes, but now we can't keep them. Kids don't care about the bonus tickets. They don't care about a seating chart, b/c they would still wind up near a friend (b/c they're all friends). Assigning sentences? doing a speech in English? I've tried to instill fear, but they don't believe it....its only a week into the second semester and I already am at this point. I need some ideas and I need them quick! While I wait, I'll be fervently praying!

Music Kick

Maybe I've just felt inspired or maybe God has been moving in me in some way. I don't know, but whatever it is I have recently been spitting out song after song....before this year started I had only written like 7 or 8 songs and out of those, only 3 of them weren't for a grade. However, recently, nearly every time that I have time alone out around town and time to get lost in my own thoughts I write music. It feels so good. I wish that I had a good recording system on my comp. But this new computer does not pic up sounds well and I can't find a good recording program that is free...I need all the recording equiptment from OC! That was so convenient to use, b/c I didn't have to worry about the sound of my own comp messing the recording up. I guess that its just back to good ol' staff paper and pencil.
P.S. I really would like for my church here in Korea to use my songs. Please pray that they will accept them!

Students

Sometimes Students can drive a teacher to the point of wanting to yank their hair out.....actually that's most of the time! But, the students who really make your day are the ones that you remember the most. I have had this 3 hr. long class on Saturday evenings, and of course no student wants to be in class for 3 hrs. on a Saturday any way....But this whole class has been really great about coming in with good attitudes...even when they had to come to class on Saturday December 25th, Christmas Day. They still came to class with big smiles on their faces and participated a lot in the classroom. But I just want to really say that one student in particular who always tried her best and worked the hardest always seemed to make my day brighter. Her English nick name is Alice, but I don't know her real Korean name (I know, that's really sad that I don't know her name! But literally, we never use nor really see their real names!). Every day she walks through the door with a big smile on her face, laughing and happy! Then on every break between hours she will draw pictures on the board of "me." Granted, these look nothing like me, but remember she draws them in less than 5 mins, usually before I have returned to the classroom from the short break. So recently I have been making a collection of pics that she's drawn on the board...So I thought I'd share some of her cute lil' pics.

In this pic you can see the side of her face. And then walking in the door is the Desk teacher who is also named Alice....so, the two Alices, and "Angel Leana"

The body of this one looks like I Smurf, I told her I really wanted to color it blue...She just laughed at me.

This one was done on the Saturday class before Valentine's Day and we were discussing the pros and cons of Credit Cards....SO, This is aparently what I think of...."C.C.s" (which stood for Credit Cards in our class notes), "I'm so pretty" (I do think that often!), "I'm an ANGEL" (I don't believe that), "Keil" (the only boy student in this class), "No ReTest...haha!" (The students' DREAM!), "Where's my boyfriend?" (nah, I don't want one of those!), "2/14" (Valentine's Day), "I hope I get chocolate" (YES I DO! ) , "Crazy Alice" (the artist, who makes my day!), one dot of "Young" (the Korean-Australian teacher at our school), and lastly one little bitty dot of "Why are my lovely students hating me?" (nah, I never wonder that, hahaha)

We had been discussing some religious info about the Angel Gabriel, and when I returned to the class after the break, I had now been renamed....Angel GabLeana

When I was grading tests I noticed this at the top of her paper...."I'm Leana Angel. If you want a perfect, give me presents!!!" Then of course it went so well with her test, because she Aced her test...PERFECT "A+"

Washing Machines

Ohh how I love washing machines here in Korea. Everytime that I wash laundry it somehow takes everything and turns it into a massive knot. Then I have to figure out someway to untie the knot and not rip anything. Then after I untie it, I discover the extremely long arms and legs on all my shirts and pants. Then since dryers don't really exist over here, I can't shrink them back. So, now I have a lot of really long-armed shirts and long-legged pants...maybe I'm just shrinking?

Very Busy, But Super Awesome Week

Intensives are finally over! Last week was kind of crazy, Monday was technically the last day of intensives. Then I had tuesday off (no classes), so I met up with a friend from church to go to the Trick Art Museum, afterward I met up with a Friend of Jessica, Heather, from the states and tried to meet up with her for dinner downtown, but she wound up getting lost on the bus system. Poor girl, eventually she finally made it downtown and we tried out a Korean Stew place, it was pretty good. Then Jessica got off work and met up with us downtown for some Starbucks coffee, then escorted Miss Heather back to the Siji area. On Wednesday I had to be at work by 9 AM, but I got off work at 4. Angela, Christi and I headed to Seoul for a free nights stay at the JW Marriot Hotel....It was super nice and absolutely beautiful inside! Later that night we met up with Jessica and Heather and we went to Kangnam for dinner, but b/c it was the Holiday most of the restaurants we wanted to go to were closed already. So since we didn't want Galbi for dinner, we wound up having.....BURGER KING! lol! I know, we're pathetic, but it was either that or go without food at that point! lol!
Thurday was Sulnal-Lunar New Year. This is usually a big thing in most Asian countries, but here in Korea, its more of a family day. So nearly everything was closed down and there weren't really any activities going on except for some traditional dances and people wearing the traditional Korean Dress- Hanbok. Since Angela and I had to work the next day we had to leave Seoul that evening and come back to Daegu. But at least we got to spend a night outside of Daegu relaxing and not working! Friday was also part of the Holiday, but we still had to teach at the academy. I think that our school was the only one teaching during those 3 days....but on Friday I didn't have very many students show up. my first 3 hr class only had 4 students out of the normal 12. Then my second 3hrs class had 6 students out of my normal 16 students. School was over at 4 PM and when I walked outside the weather felt like Fall. It was WONDERFUL. So, instead of going home and being productive with cleaning, I wound up going downtown and walking around outside! God is Amazing! I loved it! Then I wound up meeting with some people and we all went out to eat at a restaurant called POOM. It was pretty good, the had some pretty good food and then they actually had dessert too! WOW!
Saturday I didn't have to be at work til 2 PM so I got to sleep in a little. Then, since classes were cancelled on Thursday and sooo small on Friday, EVERYONE came on Sat. My class was maxed out. I'm only supposed to have 15 at max, but today I had 20. And somehow, we squeezed all 20 desks in there and surprizingly, I still had a little bit of walking room!!! After that class I only had 12 in my next class, so it was a lot roomier! Today was also Angela's 31st Birthday! So we went to a new bar and grill downtown called "Traveler's" Its owned but a Canadian, and the food was actually REALLY good for Korea! I was impressed! Angela, Jessica, Christi, Mikey, and I enjoyed the time out together and devoured the 2 layer White Chocolate Mint cake Mikey made for Ange...AMAZING!!!
Sunday, Another day off (NICE), I left for Church at 12:45 from my apt. and I still wound up being 10 mins late for the 2:00 Service....I had forgotten how long it takes to travel from my apt. ALL the way to Damti by walking and Subways! But I made it. The worship was really nice, I enjoy the extra instruments and the harmony that they've added recently. The Sermon was also pretty good, "Love" (2 Peter 5-11). After Church we hung out and talked like usual, then we got kicked out b/c small groups were starting....but that's ok, b/c the "geniuses" took a trip to Palgong Mountain in Mr. James Kim's car! He took us to one of his favorite Beksuk places to eat, which was a steamed duck served with a rice porridge. After that he took us for some traditional tea. Both places were really nice and I am so glad I got the chance to go! Lastly, he took us to an area on the mountain were we could kinda see the stars, I wanted to stay there for ever, but we had to go, that concluded my very busy, but super AWESOME week!