June Happenings

June was a jumble of many events with many different people. Let's start at the beginning:

Pictures drawn on my board during break time!

One of the students, Curtis, in his Boy Scout Uniform

Another student, Sally Yoon, protesting the use of cigarettes.

Hanging out with co-workers as they learn how to play pool.

Catching a showing of NANTA in Seoul.

Ran into this as I walked through downtown one night...Kinda Creepy!

Co-workers enjoying time together at the Deagu, South Korea's Samsung Lions Baseball Game!

My boss wearing some amazing Korean style sunglasses! LOL

All of the baseball fans with their rhythm sticks cheering for the Samsung Lions!

At the bottom of the 9th

Sirloin Steak!

Yummy Salmon Steak!

Dinner with my Co-workers

The primary fruit stand near Wolbae Market, but it's not the only one.

Fruit sellers will set up anywhere, including just right next to a random sidewalk.

My gift I made for Jiyeon.

Jiyeon's birthday with the delicious Barbie Cake, made by the one and only Mikey!

Sticker pictures with our best Korean Poses!

Jiyeon and Deborah taking a ride around the restaurant. Mies Factory.

Add an awesome night of Indian food and movies = Hillarious!

Finally, a great end to a wonderful month with a slumber party and great company!

Leana + Blogging = Fail

No matter how much I keep thinking that I am going to keep up with this blog, it just doesn't work out. So....I'm not making any promises to you or anything else. Once again, I am going to update my blog.....I'm thinking, that my new style will be through pics since you all know that I am a horrible writer! Having said that, let's go back to April.....

In April, I got to take a week of vacation. I went to Phuket and Bangkok, Thailand in the company of Jessica Lipe, Jinrae Kang, and Christi Coker. It was one of the most amazing trips I've been on. The water was soooo blue, and pristine....I'm shutting up now....here's the pics:

The stark contrast between the dark blue of the deeper waters and the light blue of the shallow water.

Jinrae and Jessica getting ready for snorkelling....as you can see, we weren't the only people there :-(

My favorite of the Phi Phi Islands. This one is called Maya Beach.

A beautiful wooden sail boat drifted in as we were leaving Maya Beach.

We came back to port just as the sun was setting. I caught this fishing boat just before they got into harbor.

We also travelled out to James Bond Islands and took a raft tour through some of the water sculpted caves.

Jinrae getting ready to go into our first cave.

In Phuket we also had to go see PhantaSea....just because! It was cute.

The main building for FantaSea!

Of course we had to ride elephants as well.

Caught a quick glance at a temple.

Watched people parasailing along the beach as the sun set behind the clouds.

Saw The BIG Budha.

BIG BIG BUDHA!

Admired God's awesome beauty!

Coming out of the cold

Do you ever feel like you get stuck in one of those phases where you are caught in a rut. The cold winter, where everything is dead and you just can't seem to stay warm enough. The smile that runs across your face is just sort of pasted there for looks. Questions always keeping your mind awake at night and you can't turn it off. I always have had friends, making friends has never been a problem for me....but I just have felt really distant from them...all of them. Yes, including my number one friend who will always be there for me. Then on Wednesday morning I was sitting down for coffee with a group of wonderful people and we were discussing a book of the Bible. One girl had made a comment about our personal relationships with others and most of all, with God. She made a comment that sort of made me re-evaluate my relationships. I can't exactly remember how she phrased it, but it went something like this "we tend to be seasonal Christians. In the 'Spring' Brand new and fresh we are growing and producing fruit for all to see. Then as 'Summer' rolls around we still have our color, but we aren't producing our fruit so abundantly. Then 'Fall' has beautiful color that we still give off, but we find our selves really struggling to keep our head above water to stay alive and strong. When 'Winter' comes we have the front of being that plant, but we feel numb, lost, nearly dead. BUT something happens the 'season' changes and that little spark that we still had deep inside starts to show and starts to bloom once again." After she said that, I started to look at my life. I have really been stuck in the 'Fall' and 'Winter' for many years. I'm ready to leave the cold behind me and make the change. What a wonderful time to make the change in my life to 'Spring' when it is the true season. I pray that with His help I can make the 'Spring' in my life last longer than only a season. "Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things; His right hand and His holy arm have worked salvation for him" Psalm 98

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!