A few funny stories

I love my students. The give me the motivation to get up and go to school everyday. They also make me laugh everyday. Here are a few stories about them, and other things that have happened over the past couple of weeks.

"Teacher you are beautiful!" exclaims one student as he knows he is about to get in trouble for disrupting class.

"Teacher, you are really good at English". Well it's a sliding scale.

Some of the other teachers at school:
"Jacque, you have an s-curve." Which I find out later is what the outline of your body looks like, and an s-curve is much better than a d-curve.
Same teacher, a couple of hours later:
"Jacque, you are too skinny, you should eat more. Are you sick?"

My co-teacher about another taecher:
"She is wearing a muffler around her neck." I find out later that a muffler can be both on a car, and a type of fur.

As you can tell- Korea is a very judgemental/notices how you look, everyday.

Every year, our county sends nine students to Canada and America. The students take a written test, and then go through an interview. A week and a half ago, my co-teacher told me that I would be the judge of the interview portion of this. So I asked her when is the contest. She say, "Tonight". So, I judge the interviews. I really don't feel qualified to "pick" who gets to go to America/Canada, because it is such a great opportunity for the students. As in most of their school lives, the written test was weighted more than the interview. Two of the students with the best interviews will not go, because their test score wasn't high enough. I feel like their speaking skills will benefit them far more than their test taking skills. My host sister's interview was one of the best, but her test score was too low, so she will not get to go :(

I also had the chance to skype with the Intro. to Ag. Ed. students at K-State. I had so much fun doing this, and it was great to connect with these students. I remember being in that class only three years ago- how cool! I told them that I was a little nervous, because I hadn't spoken to that many Americans together in over 3 months- lol! I really enjoyed being able to do this.

Yesterday, I went to Chuncheon. On the way back, there were so many people on the bus, that over 15 people (inluding myself) were standing. I couldn't believe that they would let that many people on the bus, and not make them wait for the next bus. It is a 50 minute ride to Hwacheon, and the roads are typical mountain roads (i.e. curvy/hilly). So, it was an interesting ride.

This afternoon, my host family and I are going to carve pumpkins. They have never done this before, so it should be a good time! The pumpkins here are a little different though- they are the same diameter, but half the height of "regular" pumpkins. They are "squatty" as my grandma would say :) I am also going to cook an American dinner for them tonight. It should be a good day.

Next weekend, I am going to Seoul to watch the Michael Jackson documentary "This Is It". My friends and I are then going to try to go out for Halloween.

I hope this blog finds you all well. I miss you and love you.