Lunar New Year

Have a listen to this song by Rooftop Moonlight. It's been stuck in my head for a few days, so hopefully it gets stuck in yours! 정말 고마워서 만든 노래 (Thank You So Much).


February 1! A new year again, this time according to the moon. I suppose since I forgot to make any New Year;s resolutions on January 1, I can make them now. I don't have many:

1. Get to know my best friend better. That's right, some serious Jesus time.
2. Learn. to. speak. Korean. gosh . darnit.
3. Have some marvelous adventures with marvelous people.

I've started on number three already, actually! This past weekend I visited Ganghwado, an island to the west that is only a few kilometers from North Korea. Kate and I went with Sarah, who graciously organized the whole thing. We didn't have a packed schedule, mostly going to the Peace Observatory and checking out some other things as we felt like it.

Visiting the Peace Observatory was both a really neat and an odd experience. It has a fantastic view of a the North Korean village...some of which is fake, but there are people who live there too. We could see them through binoculars, on their bicycles, a family or friends gathered in front of a house. Just normal things. On a holiday like Seollal when Koreans usually are with family, it was sad to think that there were some families that were still divided, on either side of a river that was only a few kilometers wide physically, but much further in reality.

While looking at the village, I thought how strange it was...there was a probably a bird somewhere who lived in North Korea and flew across the river to South Korea whenever she liked to get some food or look for sticks in a new place, going and coming freely. How many older Koreans with siblings and cousins across the divide can only dream of that for themselves and their families. May God grant it in their lifetimes.

Our pension was on the other side of the island, so it took a little while by bus to get there, but it was very quaint and comfy, in the slightly tacky way of every pension-y place I've been to here so far. We played Dutch Blitz, and Phase 10 and Banagrams, which I lost, but was pretty pumped to be able to play the words "pidgeons" and "prenatal." We slept in pretty late the next morning, which was of course glorious, and then the pension owner gave us a ride to the rocky beach area next to the bus stop we were headed to. The weather was very overcast, and it was a little windy, so the rocky beach was putting me in mind of visit to Cramond island in Scotland. Wild places everywhere have a taste of each other.

While on the rock beach just enjoying some nature without frills or loudspeakers, we were talking about how it was being a kid and how we feel nostaligic for it. Sarah mentioned that she wished she could experience life like a child does, which is to simply do and not think about experiencing it. So many times as adults, we have marvelous moments, just as marvelous as ones that we had as children, but unlike our childhood moments, we are aware of how special they are. We make a mental note to treasure them, to savor them. Not that doing that is wrong or not important, but sometimes it can seem like you're taking pictures all the time and forgetting to look out from behind the camera and just see it as it is. I hope I can do that more this year.

We arrived at the old Anglican church just as the rain started to come down hard. It was built in 1900 and is one of the oldest in Korea. It is also one of the only churches I have seen so far built in a traditional Korean style, with the beautiful red and turquoise wood and concave roof. I was talking with Karen later about it, and she mentioned how it seemed that older church traditions, like Anglicanism and Catholocism seem to often times do a better job of taking on the architecture of the countries and areas where they are present. Probably because those faith styles traditionally have taken the space or building used for services into account as an important part of the worship experience, thus building in such a way as to communicate the importance of the place to the people who will worship there. We weren't able to go inside the church at the time we visited, but someday I would like to go there on a Sunday morning.

So, it was a fantastic vacation! I feel very refreshed, ready to finish off the Connexus month well.

Community News:

* This month is our first month of doing the report cards on the computer! huzzah to digitalization.

* We're also hoping to begin discussions about adding an enrichment month into the curriculum year to help the kids who are struggling have a time for review and give the kids who are doing well a chance to do some new and fun projects.

* We are starting the process of interviewing new teachers! Only problem is...there aren't many applicants. If you know anyone interested, or you are interested yourself, contact me!

Quotes from the Community:

"My face is so close to my face."--Kate experiences the last-elevator-down squish next to the mirror.

Yoonseo: "Did you finish that Uptown Girl thing?"
Me: "Downton Abbey?"

Yoonseo: "I think Yongjin got more handsome after drinking American water."
Yongjin: "I did drink a lot of water."

Thanks for reading!
-Abby

Number 8 comes to a close

I'm just a few days away from completing my 8th month here! It's crazy to think that I am 2/3 of the way through my year teaching. I'm not really sure what kind of music that merits, but since I'm super grateful for the way God has been with me so far, how about He's Always Been Faithful by Sara Groves.

So what's up these days?
Lately, I have been feeling renewed in my desire to get better at Korean, but kind of bored of the methods I was following before, since I am really not in as much need of taking in tons of information, I need instead to be producing more. Particularly verbally.

Actually, I could really use some prayer about this. I sometimes feel like I have something physically keeping me from speaking, that's how nervous and self conscious I get before I try to say something besides two to three word answers. Don't get me started about talking to elders, like grandmother aged people. I am so afraid of not using the formal verbs and insulting the pants off them by accident that I have pretty much resorted to gestures.

One problem I have is that I keep having a lot of grammar/"does this sound natural" questions and I haven't been able to find someone that both can answer my questions in a way I can understand and who actually has time to do it. As is the same for English, if you haven't studied how your language works, it's hard to answer questions about it that a second-language learner might have. So, I've been feeling a little frustrated about that, but I don't really know how to fix it. I guess just keep trekking and trying my best.

On the Connexus side of things, it feels like the month has been flying by. Besides the projects I mentioned last time, I am starting to do something else new as well. During teachers' meeting this week, Heather gave the idea of having the more advanced classes self-correct their homework before turning it in, which I thought was an awesome idea. Otherwise, homework correction tends to be a time when the students are just waiting around and not learning anything. Also, I know for a fact that they often make the same mistakes over and over again, even if they know how to do it correctly, simply because they rush. So, I think that from now on I am going to have them try to self-correct before turning in their work. I might even try to have some of the higher Blue classes try it. They can at least try to fix things like spelling and using 's' on the end of simple present verbs in third person, which are often the most common mistakes I find.

We finally got some snow a few days ago, around 2.5-3 inches total I think. It was enough to make everything really beautiful, and so far it's been cold enough that is hasn't melted yet! I wish I could just stay inside and drink tea and admire it, but walking to work in it is pretty nice too.

Community news:

* Our newest idea of how to avoid the artic stairwell is cutting a hole in the desk between Sarah and Heather and creating a chamber pot/outhouse (inhouse?) area. There is already a sewer smell outside almost everywhere, so why not inside?

* Me and Sarah and some others are going to try some scripture memorization! It's been a while since the days of Bible quizzing, so we'll see how well it goes! I'm planning to re-memorize Romans chapter 12.

* Karen's parents are here from the U.S. until the end of January. So fun to meet some people who are special to some of our community members!

Quotes from the community:

"The New York strip is so good. When I eat it, I feel naked." -Yoonseo's thoughts about Outback Steakhouse.

Abby: "Lomie, is your monkey a boy monkey or a girl monkey?"
Lomie: : "방귀." (Fart).

"Hey! you can lick this envelope!" --Kaia has a miraculous experience.


Quotes from the classroom:

Rafael: "The mouse puts the dog in the girl."
Abby: "This sounds like 영양탕..."
Rafael: "Yes the girl eats the dog."

"My least favorite animal is a dead rat." --Yoochan


Thanks for reading!
-Abby

We are the New Year

It has been a coon's age, everyone. It's hard to choose a blog song because there are so many I have been listening to lately, but here is one for the new year: This is the New Year by Ian Axel. This one will be a long post, so hang on tight!

Let's do some serious reminiscing. The Christmas party at Connexus on Dec 21 went super well. It was crowded though, let me tell you! with our students almost as full compacity, even when we split the day into two parties we still had at least 50 people or more in the building during each time slot. I manned the paper plate angels station with Kaia. Most kids did well, but we had a lot of wingless or dress-hacked angels too. We also had one Zombie angel and one of my students (now former) Jerry, decided he would make a dragon instead. What ever floats your canoe. One really fun part of the night was the auction we had to raise money for Save The Children. Basically the parents spent ridiculous amounts of money on little trinkets and some cool stuff, but it was all for a good cause. I knitted two ear warmers to donate, which two of my students bought in the end. So cute.

On December 22, my Christmas started early with a trip with Yoonseo to see a boy's choir from France perform. They were so excellent! I absolutely loved it. It was very Les Choristes -y. Never will I cease to be amazed at how high little boys can sing. If they were instruments, they would be piccolos.

Christmas eve and Christmas festivities in our community were super. I'll be honest and say that before hand I was just kind of viewing Christmas here as something to "try to make the best of" since Christmas is so special and fun at home in the U.S. But I was happily surprised that it was nearly as special, just in different ways. We all met together on Christmas Eve after work and had lot of finger foods and a gift exchange. Then we sang carols together until it was quite late. I think singing together was one of my most favorite things. There is something so warm in sharing in such a familiar thing together. We all knew the songs, we all knew the tunes. There have been many times here where I am more aware of difference between us than the things that are the same, so it was such a blessing for all our commonalities to show up so clearly. A few of us finished up Christmas Eve by watching The Grinch, Jim Carrey version, which was different from the usual Muppet Christmas Carol in the Long family, but was still fun. I burned the midnight, er, 1 a.m., candle baking some scones for our Christmas breakfast.

Christmas morning we had breakfast at 8:30 to make time for another new tradition to try out: In Korea, Christmas is traditionally a time to go to church. So, Grace and Peace was also having a service at 11 with a lunch at the Greek restaurant following. A few of us went to different churches or just stayed home to rest, but I went with Yoonseo to the service. It was really neat! We read some scripture and sang carols, and then some church members shared some songs as special music. It was nice to see so many people on such a special day. I was a little zonked from lack of sleep, but I still really enjoyed it. I think my favorite part of the day however was skyping my family with Yoonseo for a while. It felt like I was really there with them! It definitely got me in the mood to see some family in person, which was great because two days later, Sie arrived!

It will be hard to detail all the things we did, so I will highlight some favorites: visiting Chuncheon and seeing Yoonseo's university, then taking a quick hike up a snowy mountain. It was really fun to hear Yoonseo's stories from being in university, and I was so happy that Sie got to be there too. Sometimes it's difficult when you realize that the most important people in your life don't really know each other, so it was awesome that Sie could be with us and help bridge that divide. We had many other awesome adventures, like Jump (my second time: can't get enough of martial arts comedy), visiting the Two Waters park in Yangpyeong, walking through the middle of protests, playing Killer Bunnies, drinking lots of tea and lots of great chats. Best Christmas present ever!

It was definitely sad to say goodbye. I suppose it will sound depressing to say that it was so nice to truly be myself, because it's not that I can't be myself here, it's that I am a different self here than I am in the U.S....I don't relate to people the same way here as I do there because we don't have the same shared personal history/inside jokes/interests what have you. It's not bad, it's just different. I'm sure I will miss being my Korea self when I leave. This Christmas, I was especially missing being my U.S/Pennsylvania self, so it was a really special time to reminisce and just hang out with somebody that knows me pretty much as well as I know myself. Miss you, Sie!

After he left, it was time to get down to business to defeat the huns. The huns in this case were Yoonseo's papers for his master's program. He had written them in Korean, and he was going to translate them into English outloud while I typed them and tweaked some grammar. We had one day to do it, so we skipped church on January 5th and worked from 11:15 am to 11:15 pm to get them finished. It was actually pretty fun for me; I loved being able to do some academic writing again, even if was only editing. And, I ended up learning a lot about Restorative justice methods and theories. I felt like a student again, how fantastic!

Speaking of students, there's been some major changes with classes here at Connexus. I lost my beloved Green class, the students went to other teachers. But, thankfully, they all seem to be doing really well in their new classes. In place of them, I've started teaching a phonics 2/ Blue 1 combo class with two new little guys, Raphael and Daniel. Yup. Raphael. Gotta love some of the English names kids come to Connexus with. They are really quick, which is a nice change, since most of my classes are a little on the slower side. Also, they have really good ears for pronounciation and intonation, so already they have great expression when reading their storybook! I think it's going to be a great class.

I've also been doing some fun projects with my classes! This past friday I made sock puppets with all my lower level classes and they loved it! I had them draw pictures of what they wanted their puppet to look like before they started, so it was cool to see how they acutalized those ideas, or how they changed as they got their hands on the materials. I wish I had taken more pictures, but because I was so busy helping kids glue things, I only took pictures in one class. However, I will do it again with my more advanced class (who learned knitting on Friday) because they are doing a puppet unit this month! We're working on shadow puppets right now, but we will finish those this week. Teaching that advanced class knitting went well! Eileen actually came back on Monday and had finished her scarf! I was so surprised. I knew she had learned once before how to knit, so she was quicker to pick it up, but I was amazed at how fast she had finished it. Projects are so fun!


Recently Read/Watched/Listened:
Read: The Fellowship of the Ring--still in progress...I have become a really undiligent reader.
Watched: About Time, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Frozen. All were super! I was actually a bit surprised by how much I liked The Hobbit because I used to be such a book purist. I think now I am just such a sucker for anything Middle Earth related that I'm ok if it is basically just a well-written fan fiction version of The Hobbit..though still not really down with the whole dwarf/elf romance. If you're going to take the audience out on a limb, it has to at least have precidence in the history of Middle Earth. As for About Time and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, they are some of the most beautiful non-artsy films I've seen in a really long time. About Time made me cry and Walter Mitty not only had a really neat story line, it was just lovely to look at because of the cinematography. Frozen was FANTASTIC. It reminded me of the older Disney films with how much music was in it, and all the songs were great and I just loved the storyline--true love for once wasn't a prince doing something to save the princess, but instead was a sister giving up her life to save a sister. Totally neat. Also Olaf. Loved that guy.

Listened: These days I am loving the soundtrack of About Time, Rooftop Moonlight (옥상달빛), and Sara Groves.

Quotes from the community:

Sarah: Yongjin, when is your lecture?
Yongjin: 2:30
Sarah: Good, you can help with dishes!
Yongjin: Sounds good....but tastes bitter.

"I hate saliva from people I'm not in love with." --Sarah

Anna: "Does my hair look as good as I think it does?"
Kaia: "It reminds me of the 90s."
Anna: "I'm at peace with that."

"If it's chunky, is that fun?" --Kaia's question about deviled egg filling.

"All the moms here are babes!"--Heather

"I can't believe our holiday is this fruitful. Usually we are just lying down and scratching our legs."
  --Yoonseo

"I don't think Jesus would turn down waffles." --Josiah

"Have you guys seen our new couch? Come and touch." --Jae

Quotes from the classroom:

"'Oh no! the princess is beautiful' says the prince.
Prince goes to the princess. He talks 'do you want a boyfriend?'
'Yes I want a boyfriend'
'It's me, boyfriend'
 'Ok.'
 --Joy's homework sentences. The prince is one smooth cookie.

Abby: "Do you like silkworms?"
Joy: "No I don't because silkworms are yucky." PREACH IT SISTER. Grossest snack in Korea.

O Come O Come Emmanuel

Can you guess today's music? One of my favorite versions of O Come O Come Emmanuel is the fantastic Rosie Thomas version, but unfortunately I couldn't find a good version of that on Youtube, so I will go with my current favorite instrumental version of it: O Come O Come Emmanuel by The Piano Guys.

This past weekend was a super relaxing one for me. It's sometimes hard to have a relaxing weekend because you feel like you want to get out of little old Deokso, but this time we had some project to do! First was deep cleaning the apartment...I know boring, but it's actually really satisfying to everything looking all nice and shiny. Because our apartment is not too big, you can get a lot done in a short amount of time, so you feel really productive without spending hours on it. Next was Skyping with Josiah, which was even more awesome. In case any of you want some good advice on nearly anything or want to look at cool lego sets with someone, he's kind of the best person in the world for that. We both pretty much decided that Lego's Creator line of lego sets is the bee knees. 

Sunday I stayed home from church and had some F.A.B.I.C. From Afar church on the couch. So enriching! I'm realizing that I need to be more intentional about getting spiritual food in my own language. Translation at church is a huge blessing, but sometimes it feels a little like trying to suck water out of a washcloth instead of drinking from a glass. That's a weird word picture, but you get what I mean. Then in the afternoon, Kate and I made an awesome paper bunting decoration for our wall while watching Baby Mama. Can you get better than crafts and Tina Fey? 

In the evening I had some awesome Korean-Chinese food with Yoonseo and then we went with Michael and Heather to see About Time, which turned out to be the best movie I have seen in a while. Yes, I even cried, can you believe it? 

So a weekend at home actually turned out to be just as great as an adventure weekend.

What's happening on the Connexus side of things? I found out yesterday that my favorite student Grace is moving to Sarah's class next month. I'm glad she isn't leaving Connexus entirely, but I am sad that she won't be in my Green class anymore. I know it's probably against all teacher protocol to have favorites, but I do in pretty much all of my classes. Sometimes it's hard to remember that we won't have these students forever, and probably a few will even leave Connexus while we're still here, like precious old Jack. (Still miss that kid).

We've started to talk about things like enhancing/changing the curriculum too. We're all going to try implementing some new ideas. For instance, for my yellow class, I am going to try a knitting project for Friday individual activity days probably starting in January, and might try making a puppet theater with my Green and Blue classes.
So, I'm feeling excited about trying out some cool new things!

Christmas Listening List (Old and a little more obscure edition):

* In the Bleak Midwinter

* The Wexford Carol

* The Huron Carol

* Good King Wenceslas

* Boars Head Carol

* Adam Lay Yboundem

* Coventry Carol

* Hear We Come A' Wassailing

* The Holly and the Ivy

Quotes from the Community:

Yoonseo: *After looking at a picture of Elmer Fudd* That is my dream.

"Oh, your belly button's cute, Sarah!"--Anna

Quotes from the Classroom:

Susan: Eileen, would you rather marry with Korean boy or American boy?
Eileen: American boy because...cute babies!
Susan: Korea babies are not cute? You are Korean baby! You are cute!

Sungyeon: "Which do you like better, Rudolph or snowflakes?"
Joy: "I like Rudolph better."
Abby: "Why?"
Joy: "He is cute."
Abby: *mentally* "she said I'm cuuuuuuuute!"  Gotta love the stop-motion Rudolph film.

Advent

There are few things better than the soundtrack of A Charlie Brown Christmas, so please enjoy O Tannenbaum by the Vince Guaraldi Trio while you read this post!

That song is particularly fitting, since this past Sunday we put up our little Christmas tree! It's very short, and fake, and has mostly the gaudy and glittery dollar-store style ornaments that seem to be the only kind available in Korea, but still it makes me so very happy. Sitting in the living room with the lights down and the Christmas tree lights on is just fantastic. Lots of warm fuzzies inside.

I've been feeling a little homesick these days, a usual thing around holidays, but have been bringing some things from home into our celebrations here to ease the feeling of being far away. Our apartment is doing a little advent reading together every night using John Fickett's O Antiphons Advent booklet. It is so excellent and the exact thing that I was looking for to help us usher in Jesus this Christmas. Thanks Uncle John for your great writing!

In the teaching department, things have been going well. There are so many happy things, but I am not always careful to make special note of them, so they sometimes run together...I do tend to take note of the not so great things, which unfortunately makes my memories of certain classes not so great. I would appreciate prayer for dealing with my 5:30 class. They talk when I am talking, and one student in particular has such a negative, flippant and disinterested manner that I spend half the class trying to get her to actually try the activities we are doing and stop playing with her dang eraser/pencil/mini toilet plunger/pencil sharpener whatever the heck else she brings to distract herself. 

One student that always makes me happy though is my student, Grace, or Dohyeon. She is 10 years old in my Green class, and is absolutely precious and loves class. She is so eager to participate even in more tedious lessons where we are learning a bunch of vocab and her writing has been improving visibly from month to month. She is maybe a little bit lower than the other two boys in the class with spelling and fluency, but to me she is a much better student than they are because of her attitude and her geniality. The boys are very competitive with each other and are not always kind to her, but she never lets that stop her from learning. What a gal!

Community News:

* Heather and the Men's Apartment took some pretty hilarious Christmas roommate pictures. Please anticipate them.

* Turns out we don't have to bake so many cookies for the Christmas party, so less stress in the baking department!

* Lots of rearranging with classes and teachers coming in January. Because many of our students are entering middle school, the time at which they can come to Connexus will change because they will get out of school later. Thus, we need a big class shuffle to happen to make sure everyone can still attend. This will mean handing some favorite students over to other teachers, which is always a tough thing, and the addition of new students to already established classes, which can be tricky too. Pray for all of us as we go through some big transitions. 

Recently Watched:

* Downton...as always. 

* Wreck It Ralph. How did I miss that one when it came out? so good!

* Human Planet: Mountains. Best part was the Mongolian hunters with their trained eagles.

* Mud. This movie's lesson is....cottonmouths are dangerous? Good movie, but one I feel like I need to think over a bit to sort out the themes and motifs and whatnot.

Quotes from the Community:

"Then Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them because they don't know what's going on...what the heck.'"--Yoonseo's rendition of the Crucifixion.

"Are you good at dinosaur vocab?"--Anna

Yoonseo: "Why don't you remember this place?"
Me: "I'm not good at recognizing places in the dark."
Yoonseo: "Then please don't wear sunglasses."

Quotes from the Classroom:

"Are you friends with Yester Anna?"--Minseo asks about Anna Ruth

Me "Which do you like better, pencils or erasers?"
Yoobin: "Same."
Me: "Can you make a sentence?"
Yoobin: "Same same same same."
Me: ..............*mental facepalm* 

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan

Lately I have been really loving the old, less common Christmas tunes, like Good King Wenceslas and Lo 'Ere a Rose is Blooming, those types. So here is a really nice version of one of my current favorites, In the Bleak Midwinter by The Honey Trees.

The lyrics to that song are pretty neat:

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, 
earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone; 
snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, 
in the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God, heaven cannot hold him, nor earth sustain; 
heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign. 
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed 
the Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ. 

Angels and archangels may have gathered there, 
cherubim and seraphim thronged the air; 
but his mother only, in her maiden bliss, 
worshiped the beloved with a kiss. 

What can I give him, poor as I am? 
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb; 
if I were a Wise Man, I would do my part; 
yet what I can I give him: give my heart.

(Gabby, doesn't the last stanza make you think of Minch during Chloe's goodbye party when we were in Malawi? I still have that video of her somewhere, hehe!)

Though the version I posted doesn't include it, I love the second verse the best: "Our God, heaven cannot hold him, nor earth sustain...In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed the Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ."

It's kind of the message of Christmas in a nutshell. The Greatest of All can't be contained, and yet still entered the smallness of our tiny timelines just for us. Eternity enters time. How cool is that?

I think I wrote last time about being upset because I couldn't translate a poem. Well, I tried again and was able to come up with something! I know it's probably not even close to the original, and I did some definite paraphrasing to preserve some cool poetic spacing. The poem was actually handwritten on a piece of paper and given to Kate at the art market outside of our church in Hongdae. The girl who gave it to her said she was giving away Korean poems to help spread appreciation for them. From what Kate could understand, her vision was that by translating poems, Korean learners would have to think deeply about them and would then see their virtue. Kind of a cool idea, actually! So here is my humble little attempt at translating: 

Suppose that me loving you                                                    

Means putting myself outside                                                  

Of my own being                                                                  

The self-transpiration of the pomegranate                               

The weariness of things that breathe—                                   

Those who have discovered the redness of the wild cherry    

let us become                                                                           

wild cherries scattered over the countryside                         

complex and complicated.                                                     

--Ham Sungho      

가령, 내가 너를 사랑한다는 것은   
 나를 나의 바깥에 두고있다는                                                              

 갓이다
 석류가 저절로 벌어지는 것은
 숨을 가진 것을의 피곤함--

산수유 열매가 붉은 것을 알게
되자
바깥이 온통 산수유 천지다
복잡하고 복잡해라

 --함 성호
Community News:

* The new projector arrived! We watched Human Planet: Jungles and it was so clear and bright. Luxury viewing.

* The heat in the teacher's room might be fixed today! Soon we will be popsicles no longer.

* Papearl sells a pretty nice variety of cheap but good yarn. The Christmas Knitting Machine now doesn't have to travel to Dongdaemun for supplies. Yessss

* Sunday is December 1, so that mean SETTING UP THE LITTLE CHRISTMAS TREE GLOOOOOOOOORIA! 

Quotes from the Community:

* "Put that in the video: we don't bash kids here." --Michael's public relations advice.

* "The shoemaikarh" --Nayeon Impersonators all over the office. (The Connexus video is going to be pure gold, everyone).

* "Makgeoli isn't alcohol, it's culture."--Yongjin


Quotes from the Classroom:

Joy: "Do you have any Love or love?"
Love: "I have one me and a lot of love."

 "I love Anna <3 <3 but you love me?"--Anna's student Youngeun makes a confession.

"Snow snow please comeing faster! I want to meet you! I love you snow!"--Cindy's precious journal, incorrect spelling and all.

We welcome December with tireless hope

It's a balmy 50 degrees fahrenheit and I'm still so cold. Serious winter wimp right here. Anyway, I've held out long enough, so our first Christmas song of the season is Sleeping At Last again because right now I am just all about poetic lyrics. Please listen to the gorgeous song: Snow by Sleeping At Last.

Fall is known for being a sensitive time for people over here, but I think for me personally, the end of Fall and beginning of Winter is when I start thinking more deeply and feel more introverted (if that is possible). Cue time for poetry reading and listening to Sleeping At Last like an addict. 

Along with thinking more comes worrying more...and usually about things that don't need worrying about. Case in point: my most recent cry was because I couldn't translate a poem from Korean to English. At the time it felt like evidence that I wasn't getting any better at Korean and that literature, one of the things most dear to me, was forever inaccessible to me in another language. A.K.A. Major Drama Queen Moment...but actually one that kind of still worries me just the tiniest bit.

Winter in many ways is a time for patience, a time for "waiting-and-seeing." The truth is that most things in life take time, more time than we imagined: learning languages, relationships, buying more yarn to finish that scarf (still haven't gone yet...). The question isn't whether we'll have to wait or not, because we will. The question is what will we do with the waiting? Will it only be that squiggly line between times and dates (November 23~June 2014) or will it be something of substance?

I also don't think "being of substance" is about doing doing doing either. Maybe getting too deep here, but a metaphor I've been thinking about lately is that of the flower bulb. It doesn't do a whole lot actively, but it's the result of a plant slowing storing up strength for itself. It's a kind of rest, but an active rest that prepares the plant to flower when Spring comes again. So that's what I want to use my Winter for. For waiting-and-seeing and storing up strength. 

Community News:

* Prayer for Sunny appreciated! Her baby was looking like he was going to make a rather early arrival, so now she has to be on bed rest...tough to do with two other little people in the house.

* Projector bit the dust, but there is a new one on its way! Of course, there is a donation box, if you would like contribute to our movie watching.

* The Great Season of Cookies is on our doorstep. In order to give two cookies to every attendee of our Connexus Christmas party, we calculated that we will need to make around 800 cookies. That's right. 800. It's going to a factory up in this joint for the next couple weeks. 

Recently Watched

* Home Alone 2. Those robber should have been dead. It's like Looney Tunes. Also, I miss having a TalkBoy.

* Human Planet: Artic. I guess I should be thankful it's not that cold here. Next up a little more steamy with the Jungles episode!

Quotes from the community

"Michael, you are a really good friend. Your being, your laughter, your smell." --Yoonseo

"Sybil is a serious babe." --Heather speaks the truth


Quotes from the Classroom

"How many kilos does your mom weigh?" ---Sarah's students grill each other on the nitty gritty stuff.