Essential Preparation: Happy Mind!!

Everyday, there is a printed sheet given to all of the teachers that has announcements, schedule changes, etc. on it.  It is all in Korean, so usually someone explains all pertinent announcements to Dionne and then she comes and tells me.  Next Tuesday, all of the teachers are going out for lunch at a ritzy seafood buffet for a social outing.  To announce / remind everyone of the outing, the following invitation appeared in today's announcements:

When: 3rd May (Tuesday) 1:00 - 3:00
Who: Every Teacher (We have 34 RESERVATION!!)
Where: In Bungdang Jungga-dong (another town about 15 minutes away)
            Todai (International Cuisine and Sushi Buffet Restaurant)
Special Event: Gift and pleasant lunch time ... etc...
Essential Preparation: Happy Mind!!

I have no idea why this announcement was in English, but it made my day...  You best believe I'll prepare a happy mind for a pleasant lunch time!

On a side note, I had a completely delightful, leisurely weekend spent doing some light shopping and heavy people watching from a cafe in a college neighborhood.  To cap off a great Saturday, I got to talk to many members of my extended family at the respective Easter gatherings.  I thoroughly enjoyed every minute and I feel recharged to get through the next three months until I come home for a visit.  Hooray for Skype and the awesome people I am blessed to call family!

A Few Funnies...

The last couple of days have held some solid gold funny moments.  These are part of what makes living here so delightful...  These cherry blossoms don't hurt Korea's reputation either...

They are soooo pretty but they don't last long...

On Tuesday, our school hosted a radio show to showcase (literally) how awesome we are... and, obviously, humble, too :)  Since the program was supposed to make an appearance in our English class 2nd period, Dionne and I planned special lessons to showcase our Business English curriculum for that class and I wore a dress for the occasion.  As I walked into school that morning, one of the students on student council who greets everyone in the morning (and makes sure everyone is in their proper school attire) rose her hands above her head and said, "Oh Teacher!  You so cool!!"  Little tyke warmed my heart :)

Right before second period, we were informed that the radio dudes wouldn't arrive to the school until 11:00 so they wouldn't be coming to our classes after all.  NICE.  This didn't upset me in the least.

After our morning classes, Dionne and I went to lunch.  During lunch she told me that one of our co-teachers told her that the pastor "asked" her and Dionne to sing at church this week.  And, by ask, I mean this:  "Pastor prayed about it and God told him that we're singing at church this week.  We have to."  When Dionne told me this story, I laughed so loud that people turned to see what the deal was.  It's a good thing they like it when we laugh at lunch...  (The founder's wife, who is also the principal of the high school, told Toni that she likes to hear our foreign laughs echoing across the lunch room because it tells her that we are happy here.  How cute!)

Enter fourth period - a first year class.  Right before the class started, we were told that the radio people would come to THIS class, a class I had other plans for...  NUTS.  So, I pulled out a lesson that we had already beat to death, but since we explained that they were special and would be on the radio, the little gems cooperated to the fullest.  And, I gave them candy, which never hurts the cooperation level.  So, they performed their phone conversations like the little champs they are for 30 minutes.  And guess what?  The radio dudes never showed.  Schedule change.  DOUBLE NUTS.  Oh well...  this little blunder gave me a new respect for that class, so it was a good thing for them I guess...

That afternoon, as I was walking down the street, a random man stopped me, extended his hand and said, "Korea."  I (quite awkwardly) shook his hand and told him to have a nice day.  He said thank you.  Weird.

Yesterday was the last day for my after school class's term.  I brought a little cake and we had ourselves a par-tay.  Whoever said teenage girls don't like to eat is a dumb tool.  These girls demolished that cake in a few minutes.  It was kind of impressive.

My little after school dears.  They were de-light-ful.

THE CAKE.  Korean cakes are sooo pretty, and delicious.

Eating cake with wooden chopsticks will never get old... or normal.

Then, we played a rousing game of homemade Pictionary.  If the words were too confusing for them or they hesitated very much, I let them pick a new card.  One of the girls picked a card that said "vacuum."  I expected her to be confused and ask for a different card.  Instead, her eyes lit up and she went to work.  I was impressed by her apparent determination for drawing this word.  Little did I know... She drew a circle, then colored in a sort-of triangle above it and two dots in the middle of the circle.  I was baffled.  It was obviously a head, but what the H did this have to do with a vacuum?  The girls seemed to be on the same page, though, as they all shouted, "Beckham!"  She excitedly nodded her head at their "correct" answer, having obviously drawn David Beckham's head..  I started laughing, saying, "Good job...but your word was vacuum!"  Everyone erupted into laughter.  Here's the evidence:

BAHAHAHAHA!  So Young's version of a vacuum... :)

On my way home from school today, I was snapping several shots of cherry blossoms.  Every couple of minutes or so, I heard calls of "Noelle TeachAH!  What you doing?"  or "Noelle TeachAH.  HiEEEE!"  I had a couple of adorable conversations and two groups of girls excitedly requested that I take their picture.  The results of a simple walk home on a delightful spring day:

Rarely is there a dull day in Korea...  I like it that way :)

Cats and New Piercings...Another Weekend Conquered

I've lived in Korea for over seven months.  Seven months!  I can't believe it!  Time passes so quickly.  Anyway, here's a breakdown of last weekend...just in time for this weekend :)

Maria, Diane and I journeyed to Hongdae with intentions of visiting a cat cafe.  (More on that later.)  Maria also wanted to get her ear pierced because the hole in her left lobe had closed.  We meandered through the streets, window shopping and looking for the piercing parlor about which Maria had read online.  Piercings in Korea are great.  First, they're super cheap.  At The Crow (the small shop is right next to Lush in Hongdae if you're interested, and even if you're not :) ) Maria paid 2,000 won ($1.75) to get her ear pierced and an additional 1,000 won ($0.75) for the earring!  Crazy! And there were walls upon walls of earring from which to choose.  Also, because body art is still somewhat taboo, you see some real interesting characters in and around piercings shops.  I could people watch there all day long!  When the time comes to get down to business, they don't mess.  It's in and out, real fast.

Anyway, as Maria was getting her ear pierced, Diane and I were feeling... inspired.  Just last week, we had both talked about wanting to get our ears pierced and I've really been missing my nose ring lately.  So, it happened.  New piercings for everyone!  It turned out that Maria's ear was, in fact, still pierced, but now she has a shiny new earring...  Diane got her cartilage pierced and I conquered the tragus (the little flap on your ear close to your cheek) on my left ear.  I couldn't believe how quickly everything happened.  I told the woman I wanted my tragus pierced, I picked out a seafoam green barbell stud and was led to a bench.  The most adorable Korean girl with ripped black tights, combat boots, t-shirt, big pink hair bow and clear plastic braces (!) pierced my ear.  Not only was she adorable and nice but she was the best piercer I've ever had!  Whenever I'd gotten my nose pierced, it felt like it took forever to happen, between the needle being inserted and the ring being put in.  This time, I kept waiting for it to hurt but it never did, which was extra surprising because I've always heard tragus piercings are very painful.  Nice.

After our piercings, lunch, finding a pharmacy to buy the required cleaning ointment and a quick dash into Baskin Robbins (I had blueberry aloe vera ice cream.  I know it sounds weird but it was oh so delicious :) ), we found our way to Tom's Cat Cafe.  Here's the deal:  immediately upon removing our shoes (my socks had dogs on them...ironic?) and getting doused with hand sanitizer, we paid an entrance fee that also included one free drink.  Then we were led to a table and told to put our belongings into white bags to protect them from kitty mischief.  Then, a girl with impeccable English explained the rules.  The cats with red ribbons were kittens so we weren't supposed to pick them up and carry them.  Cats with blue ribbons around them were mean and should be left alone.  If a cat didn't have a ribbon around its neck, we were free to pet it, play with it, pick it and carry it...you name it.  So, we sipped fruit smoothies and played with cats for a couple of hours before dinner.  No big deal.  Totally normal.  There were between 15 and 20 cats roaming the cafe at any given time and let me just tell you, people watching at this cat cafe was almost more entertaining than the cats.

Cats sitting on the counter, supervising the drink preparation...no big deal.

We named some of the cats...  Behold:

Feisty kitty.

Tired kitty.

Aloof kitty.

Latte art kitty.

Aside from the whole situation being a little weird, it was a really fun atmosphere.  All around the third floor cafe were several types of perches on which the cats could hang out.  It was super clean and cute, but the idea that these cats just roam around the cafe all days sort of weirds me out...  Maybe it's because I'm more of a dog person.  Maybe it's because I wouldn't want a cat watching me make a latte...  I don't know...

At my language exchange the next day, Yeeseul was telling me that there are all sorts of different kinds of niche cafes like this in Korea: dog cafes, dress cafes in which you essentially play dress up as you drink coffee, cakes/cupcake/dessert cafes and there were others that obviously didn't leave a lasting impression on me because I can't think of any more examples...  I love how the idea of cafes in Korea is so new but once the idea caught on, it spread like wildfire in every possible direction.

Also, Bob's birthday is Sunday, and since I probably won't blog again until next week, Happy 65th Birthday, Sir!  I hope you have a magical day!

P.S. Thanks to Diane for letting me pilfer her pictures :)

Unbelievable!

A few cute stories for you, dear readers:

Yesterday, I was playing a game with some third grade students.  I put a picture on the screen and they had to tell me a sentence using a certain verb tense to get points for their team.  I try not to use pictures I find on Google, instead, preferring to use pictures from Facebook or old pictures of me.  One of the pictures I used for this game was from a sushi outing / birthday dinner four years ago in which my friend Jess and I ordered sushi with a raw quail egg broken on top:

 

When the picture showed up on the the screen, I moved the cursor around my head, asking, "Who's this?"  They looked at me with blank looks on their faces while one girl shouted, "Noelle Teach-uh?"  I confirmed her question/answer/guess.  Many of the girls asked, "Really?" while one girl, above the rest, shouted, "OH! Unbelievable!"  

Today, with the first graders, I did an activity with synonyms and antonyms.  I had gotten a worksheet and powerpoint online for this activity in which some of the lyrics to a Taylor Swift song are changed to synonyms or antonyms of the correct lyric.  They have to listen to each lyric and tell me which lyrics are incorrect, what they should say and if the two words are antonyms or synonyms.  At the end, once they have filled in all of the lyrics, we watch the music video.  I knew I was teaching teenage girls when they all squealed at the declaration of love and the kiss at the end of the video.  The girls expressed their delight so loudly that after class, Dionne asked me what was going on in my class because she had heard the screams coming from my classroom.  I guess that lesson was a success :)

This morning after morning English, a teacher asked me to clarify some of the vocabulary they learned.  After I helped her, she translated what I had said to the Vice Principal.  Afterward, the following exchange occurred:

Teacher: Tomorrow, I will forget all of this.

Vice Principal: Tomorrow, I forget your mistake.

T: Oh!  You.  Very smart.

VP:  Thank you very muchEE

T: I... love you.

VP: I love you too.

T: You give me chicken bumps.  (to me) How you call them in English?

I. LOVE. MY. JOB.

Baby Baby Baby Baby!

As of today, the Plueger tribe has grown!  Drew Nicholas Plueger was born April 6 at around 8 pm.  What a delightful little announcement to discover upon my return from lunch today!  I've heard tell that both Mommy and youngster are doing well and that Jess was one tough broad during labor.  I expect nothing less - she's a trooper!  And, Nick is one proud Papa, promptly sending and posting pictures.  They will be phenomenal parents.  I can't wait to see them in action!  We're planning a little skype sesh for when Mom and Dad swing through town on their way home from Arizona next weekend.  I can't wait!

I haven't even met the little tyke yet, but I can already tell we'll be pals.  I don't understand how it is possible to feel such a deep sense of love for someone you've never met, talked to or bonded with in any way, but I'm not in the business of explaining things (except that I am...that's beside the point)...  Anyway, I'm pretty jazzed about this little dude and can't wait to meet him when I go home this summer!

Here's a sneak preview of Little Buddy:

He's got the Plueger bod - long and lean... and, lots of strawberry blond hair!  A real ladies man.  I can see it now :)

The blanket I crocheted for him...  It turned out pretty well considering it was the first project I've ever finished... ever.

That's all for today...  Almost more excitement that a person should experience in one day.  Almost.  :)

Dangerous Rain

Behold, a few recent stories from my lovely students:

We were playing a dice game in one of my first year classes in which rolling a one meant that you lost 10 points.  On their first roll, the first team rolled a one, earning their team no points.  The girl who rolled the die, without thinking, exclaimed, "Shit!"  Immediately we locked eyes with bewildered looks on our faces.  If I were a different sort of teacher, she would have gotten a death look (you know...THE LOOK), perhaps followed by a sharp reprimand.  But, I'm me, so, trying desperately not to laugh, I said, with a huge smile on my face, "Shh, shh.  It's okay.  Just don't say it anymore!"  What could I do?  I was pretty impressed that she used it in the correct context... 

First, let me preface this story by saying that this is nothing to worry about, whatsoever.  Trust me.  I just thought it was cute and funny.   After our after school classes were finished, Dionne and I went to our respective offices to pack up for the day before leaving school together.  Wouldn't you know a story was about to unfold:
(I didn't hear this part, but Dionne re-enacted it minutes later.)

Student: Teacher!  Tomorrow, bring umbrella!  Bad rain.
Dionne:  Bad rain?
S: Dangerous rain.
D: What?
S: Tomorrow, it rain.  (Complete with really dramatic charades) You die.
D:  Really?  Why?
S: Japan rain!
D: Oh... radiation!

After packing up my bag and saying goodbye to the few teachers left in my office, I walked across the hall to Dionne's office. 

Student: Teacher!  Tomorrow. Dangerous rain!  Bring umbrella!!!
Noelle: Really?  Why?
S: (with a very proud look on her face) Radiation rain!

Here are some pictures that a teacher e-mailed me today from last week's trip to Lotte World:

Dionne and I with the head of the English Dept., Mr. Shin

With one of my favorite teachers...  She teaches History and is always good for a heartwarming compliment, warm greeting or a laugh.  Love her!

Things here continue to be splendid.  I couldn't ask for a better situation.
More later...

This Life is a Beautiful One

My heart is at home today.  As our small community comes together to mourn the loss of a fine young man and hope and pray for the recovery of another one, it is with a heavy heart that I consider life's intricacies.  The events of this weekend have caused me to realize how much in life is taken for granted and how we assume that the wild ride we take through life will not end until we're ready for it to.  Obviously, this is not the case, so I feel it is especially important to fully express myself today. 

Life is a beautiful thing.  As I cobble together a life a million miles from anything familiar, it becomes more and more apparent to me that family, friendship, sisterhood, the support and comfort you cultivate through building and strengthening relationships - these are the things that really make life rich, full and beautiful.  These are also the things that can be the most taken for granted.  If I have learned one thing over the last seven months, it is the vital importance of these connections and the effort it takes to maintain them.  I fear that I don't often enough express the sincere gratitude and love I have for all of the people in my life.  So, this is me telling all of you thank you for enriching my life and the lives of all of those you touch.  In light of this weekend's events at home, take some time to not only remember that life is precious and beautiful but also to recognize those that make your life what it is.

I also can't help but realize and remember what a blessing it is to be a part of such a wonderful, supportive and loving community.  It is no secret that I couldn't wait to move on and experience the huge world that lies outside of eastern Iowa.  However, several events during my time here have caused me to consider the love, unconditional support and charm that accompany small town life.  I guess you could say I'm hooked.

With tragedy to the east in Japan and tragedy at home, it is easy to get lost in it all.  But, as many mourn the loss of loved ones, our family is set to welcome its newest member.  Baby Plueger is on his way, hopefully this week, and let me just tell you, I couldn't be more excited!  More on that later, like, when he's actually born.  :)

All of this life talk reminds me of some of my fave song lyrics:

This life is a beautiful one
And though I've seen it coming undone,
Well, I know most definitely
It always works out the way it's meant to be
So, baby, keep your head up
Keep it on the up and up
And know now
Cuz you've got all my
Love, love, love

So, with that, I will be sending ridiculous amounts of love and prayers home until further notice. 

Lotte World

This week was class trip week.  The second graders went to Jeju (the small island off the southwest coast that Diane and I visited for Spring Break) on Tuesday and returned today.  So, we didn't teach any second grade classes this week, save one on Monday afternoon.  On Wednesday, the third graders went to Everland (like Six Flags) and the first graders went to Lotte World (kind of like Disney World, but mostly indoor.  In fact, it holds the Guinness World Record for the largest indoor amusement park in the world).  Each of the teachers was assigned to go on one of the class trips and Dionne and I went to Lotte World with the first graders. 

We had such a fun day, riding roller coasters with students, getting coffee with some teachers, looking around a folk museum that showed Korean history from prehistoric eras to the 1930s and eating an enormous and tasty lunch with all of the teachers.  Any time we were around students, they wanted to take pictures with us.  We were pseudo celebrities for the day and I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it a little... :)

We rode several rides, both just the two of us and with students or Hyunjoo.  At one point, we rode a roller coaster that goes upside down.  Today, Hyunjoo told me that the other teacher that rode it with us leaned over to her and asked, "This is safe, right?"  Adorable.  

Perhaps the best part of the day was when we rode roller coasters with a group of about 12 students.  They were so excited that we were going to ride with them and they didn't even care that they had to speak a little English to communicate with us.  They told us that our mission was to make a heart above our head (a popular pose for pictures) during the last big drop of the roller coaster.  Sure enough, as we approached the last drop, we heard cries of "Teach-UH, heart-UH, heart-UH," reminding us of our "mission."  (In case you're wondering, the mission was completed by all involved :) )  So delightful.

Here are a few pictures that I pilfered from a teacher:

We were having such a great time that we stayed at the park until about 7:30 that night, making for quite a long day.  The next day at school, everyone, students AND teachers, were walking around like zombies.  Dionne thought we should get a second day off to recover...  I wouldn't have protested.  However, as it turned out, we only taught one class (plus my after school class), so it was a pretty easy day.