Marchee and Aprir

Hello - Sorry for the 2 month hiatus. Things get busy and I forget about my little blog!

Marchee - what a pathetic, colorless, WET month! The whole month I felt like I was living in Washington. Depressing as ever, no pun intended...I still love Washington. I believe it rained almost 20 days in March. Not exactly the Spring I was hoping for.

March 2nd was our first day back at school. So far the year has been treating me well. I've got a new, interesting schedule, with new faces - both teachers and students. I'm no longer teaching the little Kinders, but they have added a second, 1st Grade class to the school. They are pretty cute, and seem to uphold the rumors that the younger students seem to speak better English than the older students. I've been teaching a lot more hours to the younger kids - some like it, others don't. My co-teacher has changed this year. She is actually a friend that I had last year (she was the 5-2 teacher), and was asked by the Principal to teach English this year. She is great. We teach together Monday through Wednesday, and I think that her teaching style is improving the way our students study and learn. We also have a new Principal. After a month of school, our Principal was promoted and we got a new, first year Principal. He is really nice and has traveled around the states a bit, so he attempts to speak to me in English...and that is always nice. The month of March was really slow, and not a lot went on.

Aprir - still depressing as far as weather goes...but a little more fun filled. I started the month off by taking a road trip with my friends Jana, Nikki, and Mack to Seoul. It was a great trip! We rode in my friend Jana's Nugget (her copper van that reminds me of a little chicken nugget) - slept in the van Friday night, and then continued into the city by subway. We had a friend with a birthday so we spent some time with him, and then did a little site seeing and shopping. My friends ended up getting tatoos. Don't worry - I'm inkless. :) It was a long weekend - mostly exhausting from the lack of sleep, but it was great to get out of Busan for a few days.

As most of you have probably already heard, an aircraft carrier was sunk off the west coast of S. Korea. A lot of scurry and hub bub has been going on about that - canceled events and such. The second weekend in April, the girls and I decided we were going to go to the Jinhae Cherry Blossom Festival to check out the famous blossoms. Apparently, since the Naval base is quite close to that city, the attendance was supposed to be a lot lower...so we figured, it'd probably be a good time to go. Well, we got lost. Ya - not fun. But, eventually we found a part of the festival and we were able to take some cute pictures, and then leave. Haha. We are glad we were able to say we went, although it was short lived and not as exciting as we thought it might be. I think if we had hit the major festival AREA, we would have been able to see a lot more...but we were satisfied all the same.

On the 18th, I ran another 10K race. This one was the Pink Marathon - for breast cancer. It was a great run - right along the beach and then, as I was rounding the corned, the great run turned into a mountain right in the middle of the race. Nice. Anyway, I ended up with around the same time as I had last November. But...I found out later that the course was longer than an actual 10K and that we had a slow start time, so all in all - I ran a bit faster. It was a great day to donate and support a cause, run with friends, and get some exercise. My friends Nikki, Chris, and Charlie ran with me and we ended up seeing a bunch of other friends, so it was a great event. We've got another one coming up in May in Dadaepo (where I ran my race last Nov.), so we are all really excited about that one.

The other weekends this past month I've been busy spending time with my friend Nikki. She will be leaving Korea here in just a little over a month. I'm really going to miss her. We've become great friends, but I'm sure we'll stay in touch.

Last weekend we spent the days shopping, eating, and going to the beach. We got 2 nice days and my face is actually, a little pink.

Later this week, I'm going on a trip to Seoul with my students. We are going to Everland (which is as close to Disneyland that Korea has) and some museums. I'll have to fill you in on what we actually do, later.

I'm really looking forward to May - and hopefully a sunny end of Spring. May has many exciting things!! Jana's birthday is the first weekend and we're going to celebrate Sunday, doing as many Korean things as possible (norebang, silly photo booth pics...etc.). I'm paragliding on the 5th! I have the day off from school, due to Children's Day (yes, this is a holiday). We've got a great party planned for May 8th - a delayed Cinco de Mayo party! I've got my 10k on the 16th, and then a 4 day weekend May 21st, which hopefully means a mini trip will be planned!!

Hope all is well at home. Miss you all! Stay safe!

Pictures will come soon...look for a Shutterfly link in your inbox!

PS The miss spellings of March and April are interpretations of how Koreans pronounce them... ;)