Thanksgiving

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. For all of you, anyway. For me, it's just another day. Another Thursday, which means I work extra long. BUT...it's not bad. It doesn't feel like it's Thanksgiving time (probably because they don't decorate or anything for it, as it's not a Korean holiday...). Of course I'm bummed that I can't be with my family, but I'm not sad that I'm here and they don't celebrate it.

To be honest, I'm thankful everyday that I'm here. I've been able to meet some AMAZING people--both Westerners and Koreans. I work with fantastic people...Gilles and John are two excellent representatives from Canada. Gilles's first language is French, and he's picked up a ridiculous amount of Korean. It's crazy how sponge-y he is with languages. John is awesome too. He is dating an insanely amazing Korean woman, Su Hyun. They live together and will be moving to Australia in summer. And that is fantastic for me because now I have two MORE reasons to travel there: 1) friends to visit and 2) friends to stay with for free! This past Saturday, I was out with another friend and we met three really friendly Koreans. Two guys, Jason and Jonny, and a girl, Ashley. I met Ashley for dinner last night, and we have plans for this coming weekend. She is AWESOME!

So really, I'm having such an incredible experience. This is enriching my life in ways I will only recognize once I return stateside. And I will be forever thankful for that!

Halloween with the Kindy Kids

Soooo....as many of my friends and family know, I'm not the biggest fan of Halloween. Thinking of a costume stresses me out to no end because everyone always has cooler, more clever, and more interesting costumes than me. BLEH! But for school, of course, we had to dress up. So I did the only thing I knew how to do...be ME. But not just regular 'ol Nicole Teacher. Oh no. I was SUPER Nicole Teacher. I wore the same color pj pants and t-shirt. I attached a black skirt to my t-shirt to serve as a cape, wore black bikini underwear over my pants, and tucked my pants into my black boots. I cut out a big black N and taped it to my shirt. The kids loved it (and they damn well should have anyway!). The boys who dressed up as Superman and Spiderman and Batman all appreciated my efforts. The fourth pic is of me and Denis (that's "Dennis" but with only one 'n'); he's one of Shannon's students.

There were some seriously cute costumes among my kindy kids too. Sam, one of my fav's, dressed as Dracula. But he didn't just dress like Dracula...he acted like Dracula. He would walk around with his cape wrapped tight around him like bat wings. He would even sit in his chair like that. He had this squinty-eye stare all day too. So cute! And of course there were a million princesses. I had some of the cutest ones, though. Sunny, another of my fav's did a fantastic Harry Potter. The funniest thing, though, was that his scarf was soooooo long that he kept tripping on it! But he didn't want it wrapped around his neck a million times because "Harry Potter no! Just one time neck!" So he had to suffer with the long tails of his scarf.

Security

There are two security guards that work in my apartment building. One is a total asshole--always grumpy, never smiles, and yells at me whenever I bring my recycling to the separation bins (apparently there's something about being white that implies I won't know how to separate glass from plastic from paper....).

But the other security guard is awesome! He's my guy. I always say hello to him when I see him. In the morning, he always asks me questions like "have you eaten dog yet?" or "have you been to the mountains?" The last few mornings, I've left without buttoning up my coat, and he always stops me to tell me to button my coat so I stay warm. He stands there with his arms crossed until I button up, then he says "ok!" and tells me to go to work. He also always asks me when I will be home in the evening. When I see him at night and I am with friends, he asks if they are people I know or if they are strangers. When I bring my recycling out, he asks me if I am drinking milk because I never have any milk cartons (I am drinking milk, but I drink it at school...don't worry Mom!). So yeah, he's my guy. I really appreciate that he looks out for me. It's nice. It's really cute too! Here's a picture of him. He didn't want to have his hat on--I think he thought it would be disrespectful or something.