Monday, July 22, 2013

Happy days, homesick days

Let's just go full in on the cutesie K-pop scene and go with the typical boy band song. I think this song is super catchy and really upbeat. Also who can beat some great random and slightly awkward sounding English phrases sprinkled throughout? What's Happening by B1A4.


I've had some homesick days lately, knowing that there have been some really fun things at home, like Chambersfest and my dear Evi's 21st birthday. I've also been totally fed up with the piece of poo that is skype. I haven't had an uninterrupted clear call home yet. I've tried google hangout, but the sound tends to lag really badly with it, so I'm not happy with that either. Basically I just want my family here with me and technology isn't getting close enough to that reality for me. *Whine*

Speaking of whining, that was the source of another thorn in my side...my host siblings have been incredible whiny lately, to the point of driving me nuts and making me feel like joining them. I was trying to trace the source of the bad feelings, and I pinned it on the fact that people aren't moving towards bed in this house until like 11:30-12 and then up at 7:30. I usually try to go to bed earlier with earplugs, but sometimes it's still too noisy. I was feeling pretty tired, and I guessed that maybe that was why the host siblings seemed so ill-behaved. They just didn't have the energy to keep it together.

So, I have an indirect method planned for getting us to close up shop earlier...I suspected that our late nights were a case of, "everyone is up, so no one goes to bed" kind of thing, so I decided to get ready for bed a lot earlier than usual and be kind of obvious in my "I'm going to sleep now" preparations. I was in bed with the lights off at 10:30. Lo and behold, 45 minutes later, everyone else was in bed too. Success! Last night I failed because I stayed up late watching a drama (whoopsy) but tonight I am planning the same tactic.

But there have been some really good times here too, not just feeling frustrated because of whining. For instance, I taught Yoonhyung and Yoonsang how to plan Labyrinth, so when I'm not feeling too whooped, we play that after dinner. Yoonhyung also has been helping me correct my practice Korean sentences for my TOPIK study, which is so much less scary than giving them to an adult. I figure she's qualified for beginner Korean...hehehe. Last night my host father made us some great peach smoothie type things, and Yoonhyung proudly showed off her ahjumma* style pants. So fashionable :-p

Some good times teaching lately have been with my last class of the day, the Blue 7 class with Joochan, Grace, Jerry and Seokhee (gotta love the English names...).
Storybook day is the best with them, because they took my encouragement to read with expression to heart and now make reading the book hilarious. Not only do they read with different voices, but they also insert little side comments when they are reading. Yesterday we read the part of Rumpelstiltskin when the queen tried to guess his name, and when it got to be Seokhee's turn, instead of reading "Is you name Eyesblue? Is your name Longnose?" as was written, I heard, "Is your name Pancake? I mean Eyesblue?" What a goober.

Hear's a taste of him at conversation time:

Me: Ok, now I will ask Grace a question! Grace, what is your favorite....
Seokhee: ...man?

hilarity ensues. He also draws cutesy little hearts in his journal next to sentences about things he likes.

In one week, I will be headed to Japan to visit Hope! I'm excited but also nervous. I have to plan everything exactly because I speak zero Japanese and also can't read any Japanese, so there is no making it up as I go along. So far I think I have some good routes plan for taking the shinkansen, but I'm not sure whether I should reserve a seat and pay extra money or not. Trip planning by myself is like my least favorite thing ever.

Ah well. Those are the latest updates!
Thanks for reading!
-Abby

*middle-aged woman

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