The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

Here's a video I took of my little girls singing their Santa Claus is Coming to Town routine. I want to bring them home with me.

... I bet you want me to, too!

Karen Teacher = Santa Claus

Bear (& Benny the Bear) came to school with me on Christmas Eve!

Then she played Santa for the kids:

Having a blast... Going to Toyama, Japan tomorrow... More updates to follow!

She's here!!!

And we're sleepy!

Bear plays Santa at school tomorrow... I'll take lots of pictures for you!

Happy Birthday, JOE!!!!!!!!!

Preparing for Christmas

Decorating for Christmas is something I always do very poorly. Somehow, though, being around kids who are so excited for Santa to come, just makes you want to dive into the holiday hysteria.

At school, Grace, Jasmine and I constructed a welcome message on our window. (This is the view from inside the classroom, I couldn't get a good picture going the other way)

The girls cut out snow flakes and I traced the HO HO HO letters for them to cut out. It was a blast!

Grace wouldn't take a picture with me, so I snapped one of Jasmine and I. (That's the headband I bought in the subway I told you about a month ago!)

My favorite part about Christmas is giving gifts. I ventured up to Insadong to buy some Korean tchotchkes for those on my list. I stopped, first, though, to get coffee at the only Starbuck's in the world who's name doesn't have to be written in English. (Suh-taw-buk-suh-kaw-pee)

The holiday Toffe Nut Latte is AMAZING!

When I got home from my shopping trip, I put up my borrowed Christmas tree and wrapped up my purchases while listening to Transsiberian Orchestra.

Then, the next day, I decided to watch Love Actually, but not without snacks. I ran across the street and bought some dduk boki (the red stuff) and a bag of fried veggies (carrots, onions and sweet potatoes).

Love Actually is all ready to be played on the laptop! It is one of my favorite Christmas movies. This is the first year that I teared up a little while watching! I must be getting old.

My favorite stories are the Portugese woman and the writer, and the little boy and his American girl. What are yours???

I have all my ducks in a row for the season! Bring it.

Christmas Miracles

In light of the holiday that is ever-so-quickly approaching, I thought I would share with you one of life's little miracles that I get to experience daily.

Teaching children sure has its challenges, and teaching children with no standards or rules except "keep the parents happy so they keep paying tuition," REALLY has its challenges. However, watching the learning process unfold is absolutely fascinating. I love seeing the little lightbulbs above their heads as a new idea or concept finally makes sense. This happens a lot more with Jasmine. Grace, well, if she can't figure something out she'll say, "Teacher, head down?" To which I must oblidge as Grace's mommy said sometimes she gets tired and needs a break.

Last Tuesday, Grace was sick. I happened to have my camera with me and managed to capture a "lightbulb moment" for Jasmine. This isn't so much a concept "lightbulb" as it is a memory click, but it was fun to watch, nonetheless.

Every morning, the class leader gets to write the date on the board. Last week we were focusing on where the commas go when writing "Tuesday, December 8, 2009." She picked it up pretty quickly. Here's her process on Tuesday:

Checking the spelling of December, and realizes she's missing something.

Thinking, thinking, thinking...

Ah ha! Teacher said 2 commas. One after day, one after number.

My girls are also working on their performance of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" for the Christmas party next week. It is probably one of the cutest things I've even seen. I'll be sure to get a video and figure out how to post it on here.

Bear's here in a week! WooHOO!

Giving Thanks

Jasmine was my only kid for about two weeks. On Thanksgiving Day, I brought my camera, and decided it was a good day to have a photo shoot with my only child.

Happy faces.

Sad faces.

Goofy faces.

Our first period "Thanksgiving" class was making candy turkeys. Here's Jasmine with her ingredients. She's ready to get started!

From left to right: Belle, Michelle, Jina, Amy and Sarah and their essembled turkeys.

Evan with his turkey! Yummy peanut butter!

Kate with her turkey!

Then, we taught the kids the Polka. Why? Your guess is as good as mine.

Lunch was fried chicken, spaghetti, egg salad sandwiches, and "cho-bap" (like a cold eggroll stuffed with rice).

After lunch, Jasmine asked me what we were doing next. Very sarcastically, I said, "We're painting Chinese lanterns. That makes sense, of course, because we are celebrating an American holiday in Korea. Why wouldn't we paint Chinese lanterns?" I was speaking very swiftly and she just looked at me with this blank face and said, "WHAT?!?!?!?" It was the perfect response, but I don't actually think she understood me.

Jasmine's sister, Olivia, joined us for some fun! They're sooo cute, right?

It worked out for my waistline to miss Thanksgiving altogether. Our boss really wanted to show other cultures, too. So we did some polka and lanterns. The one thing I'm learning here is that you just have to go with the flow. Very rarely do things make sense, but when there are kids involved, it's always going to be fun and cute, so who cares?

Hope your Thanksgiving had a lot more stuffing!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WEEZER!!!

Twilight!

A couple weeks ago, I went to Imae (a neighborhood in Bundang - just northwest of Yongin, where I live) to visit some Korean friends, bake cookies and watch Twilight.

After seeing the movie, I borrowed the book from my 11-year old Korean tutoree who had read the book in ENGLISH, and read it in a matter of 3 work days. Then, I downloaded the next three in the series (New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn), finished them in the 3 days after that, and then New Moon, the movie, came out in Korea on Thursday and I went to see that.

I have leaped on the Twilight train full-speed ahead.

Here's some pics from the day that doomed my next two weeks into nerd-dome.

Funfetti cookie dough - Thanks, Emily!

Hyejun is in the middle. Her two friends came to watch, too. They helped us put the dough on the pan!

Cookies are done!

Hyejun (June) and I.

Jaehyun... not happy. He got in trouble for trying to microwave the cookie dough. It almost started a fire. His mom said, "He's good for one accident a day - at least!" I believe it.

It was a really fun day. I love that part of town. There is a narrow river with a bike and walking path that runs the length of Bundang. I usually only see it once it's dark, but this time I saw it during the day - in FALL! It made me wish I had made it a little earlier and could just putz up and down the river for a while.

Coming up next... Thanksgiving at school!

OH! - did you notice my nifty little countdown on the left side?!?!? I'm soooo excited for my sister to be here! So close!