In my attempt to update, today is the only day that I don’t have samul nori practice which is why I actually have time to update! I shall update the more recent happenings and then work on the stuff that’s already happened.

Summer Class: summer classes officially started July 18. im basically teaching 10hrs in 2 weeks which breaks down to 1hr a day. Pretty lame. I know. I originally had 24hrs but my coT, whom ive never taught with bc he teaches only seniors, is pretty scared to teach with me. I know. I can tell and hes just awkward. so what am I doing the rest of the hours I have to be at school? Well v.principal told me that I can come and go at whatever time I please. Very nice of him to let me have that choice. However, since the 18^th, ive been coming and going the same times I would if school was still in session. I still come in at 815am and leave at 430pm. Why? Out of the blue, I have samul nori practice from 10am-230pm. We have lunch together. CRAZY! I didn’t see that coming. So for the next 3weeks, I will have samul nori practice everyday at those times. We are learning a new song and our leader wants me to perform a solo at our school's festival in the fall. Thats's great but thats pretty terrifying for me. I basically have no choice since 'no thank you' doesn't seem to get through to him. lol soooo I more or less have 32 hrs of samul nori practice and 10hrs of teaching. Since Monday, ive been hearing drum beats all day and night. Lol. I love playing janggu but I had planned on studying Korean with my free time. I didn’t think my entire day was going to be taken by practice. -____- as my students would say: teacher hard Korean study? Its Thursday already and I haven’t once opened any of my Korean books…..

Senior Class: im teaching seniors during summer school. There are 23 students and most of them have lower English levels then my freshmen students. There’s only about 4-5 students who have fairly good English. One student in particular: Kim Jin Su has really good English and I always have him try to help me explain to the class (especially explaining how to play Assassins) since my coT just sits in the back (not surprised, I figured he would do that since his English is not that great). There is another student, Yoon Yoon Han, he is the life of the class. His English is ok and has these random bursts of nonsense English sentences like: your moms nose is broken. Random. So instead of labeling him a ‘trouble maker’ I make him my scribe. His upbeat personality gets the sleepy students interested and gets everyone engaged. They help each other with spelling words and coming up with ideas. I just basically stand to the side and only help when theyre stuck. For the most part, having the talkative students become my scribes works wonders! The students pay more attention, maybe bc they don’t want me to pick on them, whatever the reason, the class gets engaged in the lesson and sometimes we don’t even realize that class is actually over and its time to go home. Ive only taught 3 classes with them and some are already starting to become more comfortable with their English :D

Flights: to be honest, I didn’t want to come back home for summer vacation. I see all my friends here planning all kinds of fun trips to exotic places. Im just going back to CA. nothing too exciting compared to where others are going. But the BIGGEST reason why I don’t want to go back is the prices for flights! OMG! Basically I had to save 2 of my paychecks to afford flying to:

Korea --> CA
CA --> NC. NC --> CA
CA --> Korea

If it wasn’t my sisters wedding, I wouldn’t have come back. 2 paychecks and all my vacation days are going to this 2weeks trip back home. Yes the thought of seeing my family and friends makes me really happy, don’t get me wrong. Its just a lot of work trying to buy flights during my speaking tests with my students. That and I had to wire money to lulu so she could buy them for me since I cant buy them in Korean money. My coT even helped me look for cheaper flights online through Korean websites but those were no use. That’s why I had to resort in finding flights through US companies and in turn had to send my Korean money to lulu so she could buy them in US dollars. Sooooo much work and stress in 2months went into just trying to find these flights! It made me seriously think about whether or not it was worth coming home to. I guess ill find out once im back in the US to see if it was worthwhile. =T

Gundams: thanks to jon I have finally started watching gundams again. This time in order. Ive only seen endless waltz so I cant say much about gundams. Theres like a bajillion of them. So I am almost done with the 1^st series. Man does the storyline move slooooow. Lol I shall see this through and watch them all! Lol

Naruto: finally got the chance to catch up. I haven’t read a single chapter since I left CA back in Feb. of course the plot is basically still in the same place: ninja war. Lol. My students only watch the series, they don’t read it so sometimes when im talking to them about naruto, I forget and I say something that they haven’t seen yet and they act like their world is over. Lol they say very loudly: ahhhh teacher! Noooo! Lol