A Monday Evening

I've been trying to work on this long extensive blog update describing the events of this past weekend. Yet, right now I'm just as exhausted as I was on Friday!

So as of now, I'm currently battling my monthly cold, talking with Cory and gluing some pictures of flowers to my bureau. I'm sure Anna will read this and think "Ha! How typical of Jessiy!"

Today at school, we had more of the "speech contest" that has been plaguing the school. Basically there is about a billion things to do plus 2 separate rather confusing and vaguely explained speech contests. My Preschoolers, of course, were brilliant (not that I'm biased in anyway...). Yet many of my other classes were struggling. How terrifying it must be for these kids. Many of them can hardly speak a sentence of English in class, and yet they are all required to participate in this competition.

I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining. I think that sometimes I'm just amazed by what is expected out of these kids. Actually, sometimes I'm equally amazed by what is expected out of their teachers... let alone everyone else living in Korea.

For those of you who may not know, Korea is full of wonderful and odd English translations that can be found nearly everywhere. The best of which seem to be found on trendy t-shirts. Some of my past favorites spottings have included shirts reading things like, "I love shoes bags" and "F*ck this music business." Please note that the expletive was actually written in true form. This shirt was worn by a sweet-looking, young school-aged girl.

What was today's favorite shirt quote? Actually this is one that I saw yesterday. The back of the shirt, worn by a fashionable and pretty young mother, said simply in bold print, "Up Yours". Not quite as shocking as the one mentioned just before, yet the two sightings were quite spaced out (by months actually) and so I was quite startled to see it.

Well unfortunately, I think I'm going to have to call it a night for now. Yes, I must say Good Night. As has been suggested by a friend, I will try to post in this everyday.

Until tomorrow, here's a lovely picture from this past spring. At the time, I thought these gorgeous flowers that bloomed literally everywhere where reason enough in themselves to live here.


P.S. It turns out that the 4 seasons in Korea, unlike the "4 seasons" in Indiana, are actually real. Spring is really spring and autumn is really autumn. Sometimes, when I'm walking home (particularly now because Autumn is my FAVORITE), the moment feels so beautiful and surreal that I'm almost positive I'm actually living in some kind of desperately moving art film. :-)