Lots of little updates. Sorry about the delay. :-( I'm trying to be better about it, I just get doing other stuff.
I've used my oven to toast bread, haven't done anything else in it as of yet, but when I get cupcakes or rotisserie success everyone on here shall surely know. I'm glad I started out with toast though as there are little things about the toaster oven I hadn't considered yet. For example, the temperatures are in Celsius as you'd probably expect anywhere but America, but I just hadn't considered it.
I went to use my fry daddy the other night and it popped the power converter that I was using. In all respect to the fry daddy it wasn't entirely it's fault as I plugged it into a converter that I had just been using in order to charge my beard trimmer (It's awesome how easy it is to change over things that charge via USB and computers were just as easy so besides the fry daddy {which I bought over here and was surprised to see an American plug} the beard trimmer is the only American plug object I have. Just an observation really.) Anyways I got a power transformer and everything is good now. :-)
My older students and I had studied the Katrina response two weekends ago. It was a good discussion, and I learned things that I didn't know about the response (or lack there of). I was trying to get across to the students the culture and the food of New Orleans and so the next Saturday I brought in some shrimp creole and dirty rice for them to try. You would've thought it was the boys and me at Razoo's and the was a plate of tricky fish in front of James. It got me thinking though. Barbecue, burgers, steak, Italian food, Chinese food, Thai food, Indian food, etc seems to spread well industry wise throughout the United States and even around the globe to some of your major metropolitan areas. Cajun food however really doesn't. Interesting.
Had a wonderfully relaxing weekend. Shined my boots and cleaned my apartment. I also read a little and went for my usual run.
Speaking of runs there is a 10K that I entered in the end of March. Yay. It was either that or a marathon so I paced myself. :-) I'm trying to get it where I'll be able to run longer than a year at a time without being injured. That also means that whenever I start doing “fun runs” I need to keep them “fun” and not be sooo competitive to the point that I injure myself again.
When I was speaking one of my older classes I was asking what they did that weekend. One of them responded that it as his mother's mother's birthday and that they typically have a party in Korea when someone turns 60. Leftover tradition from when that was a long lifespan they continued to explain. One of the other students gave him a hard time for not calling it his grandma's birthday. I got them off his back by saying it was also my mother's mother's birthday. I also explained to them about how happy I was for the internet and the fact that I was able to send her flowers from another continent. They thought that was pretty cool. I then told them about it being my brother's birthday and one of the girls asked if I sent him flowers. No. Sorry bro. Haha. I did send him something pretty cool though.
I made an awesome version of tuna salad this weekend. I've been taking a sandwich in a storage container to work and there have been a couple jealous eyes watching me eat it and it has sparked a couple conversations. I think one comment was “that's a serious tuna sandwich”. As if I would make anything less.
After the Cajun food the subject that Saturday was 9/11 and the US response. It was really a great conversation because there are so many topics about America that sometimes it's hard to get a good debate, much less a decent conversation, going during class, but the students were able to really surmise how the 9/11 attacks really affected the world over. I then told them about my millimeter machine experiences while traveling over to Korea and how I didn't see anything wrong with them and the fact that they can ask about chapstick being in my pocket with them (very cool in my mind), but I also told them that they arise a lot of controversy in the US, as if anything doesn't nowadays. At the end of the lecture and discussion I showed the Boatlift (thanks mom) and they were all in shock. They had no idea about the dust, but they also had never considered that it was an island.
During that lecture we were talking about flags and patriotism and how many flags around the globe basically use the same three colors in some form or fashion: red, white and blue. It made me laugh when I was telling them about Toby Keith's song “Courtesy of the Red, White & Blue” and I told them it was really about Korea. They weren't fooled. We were then discussing how some flags are more interesting than others. Flags that incorporate something such as Korea, the United States, Austrailia, and the we were talking about Kenya and the awesome fact of putting a shield and spears on theirs. Then we discussed more tame and boring flags such as France and then I mentioned even Japan is pretty boring with just a dot. That got a good laugh. It was then that I learned that it didn't matter what I said, as long as I periodically worked in a dig on Japan, Japanese people or Japanese culture it didn't matter.
I got a mean eye when I was walking to work the other day from a couple of unknown Anglos. Didn't really understand it, nor can I explain it. Just something that wasn't typical as even if you don't know them I've always gotten and gladly either started or returned the white head nod and “how's it going?”.
This is a sign that's posted on the back of my classroom door. I told James that this would be a great sign for the inside of his work truck.
I picked up a Korean face mask. I see them all the time walking around town. It is pretty practical because it keeps my nose and cheeks out of the bite of the wind whenever it is chilly.
These are my awesome hot pads.
I had a review session with one of my older classes on Tuesday. It went amazingly well. I preplanned the board and also made up sheets on Publisher (one of my favorite programs) to go along with the spaces so that the students could toss out their fillers to complete the board and could also script notes as they were following along. I could not have asked for better participation. Nights like this make me very happy.
This is a shirt that Scott and I saw when we were wandering around Osan.
This is a bar in Osan that I thought had a pretty awesome name.
On the way home from Osan we stopped for ice cream and Scott and I saw this car that had this graphic on the side. We thought it would be mildly appropriate to spraypaint an RK on the end of it. We didn't have spraypaint, but I do have a photo editor.
Other pictures of my classroom:
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