A normal day with the kindies...

Do you want to see what my day is like with Korean kindergarteners?

One Kindergarten Class



Bears on Keychains...

There were several decorated, plastic bears on keychains at a rest stop...

These two stuck out to me...


My Babies...

I thought a post should be dedicated to the reason I'm even in Korea....MY KIDLETS!!!

They are too cute for words but little rascals all at the same time. I love them and hate...but no matter how angry I get, by the end of the day I love them again.

Here are some of my favorites! :) (am I supposed to have favorites?)

 This is Jimmy. He's sooo sweet and loves me to death. Every time I walk by his desk he hugs my leg.


 Chloe!!! Cutest AND smallest 6 year old I know...

 HeeJoon, Ethan, and Jessica...the two boys are soooo wonderful!

 I mean...I don't have words they are so great...Jerome, Benjamin, Joseph, Ella. Benjamin and Joseph are twins.

Peter!!!!

The Face of ELB

The school I work for (ELB) has just revamped their website.

I am now 'The Face of ELB.'

Check it out here...

Smells like team spirit!

A few weeks ago I attended an annual sporting event between the top two private universities in Korea: Yonsei University and Korea University. The event has a different name depending on which school you support. Yonsei fans call the event Yon-ko Jeon and KU fans call it Ko-yon Jeon.

Every year students come out wearing either red or blue to support their team in 5 sporting competitions including baseball, basketball, ice hockey, rugby and soccer.

I'm more than aware of the fact that Americans love their college sports, but I have never witnessed so much school spirit in my life. Going to Illini football and basketball games, the students were always singing the ritual cheers but the spirit emitted at Yon-ko Jeon was beyond anything I've seen before.

Something important to know first...the cheering squad is actually the group held in the highest esteem at any university; especially these two. There is always one head cheerleader, it happened to be a male on this years squad. The head cheerleader at a Korean university is like the quarterback of the football team at any US school: everyone either wants to be that person or be with that person, ya catch my drift?

These cheerleading squads have maybe 20 members that are officially on the squad. They wear fancy, bright dance attire which has no commonality with their school colors or mascot. Then there are maybe 40 others that dance and do routines with flags, however these are the youngin's who want to be on the official squad.


The cheerleading squad has the hardest job because all of the fans are up dancing and singing THE ENTIRE TIME!!  They never quit! When one song ends, another one comes on and they start up a different dance. Most often these songs are popular Korean songs and not 'school' songs. Although they do have school songs with dances as well...

I think I've said enough and you should witness for yourself...

My Dreams...

On several occasions, I have had very vivid dreams which evoke a lot of different feelings for me including happiness, disappointment, excitement yet yearning all at the same time.

This is not at all uncommon for me to have intense dreams but the dreams I have in Korea are all linked by one thing...

In each dream, I give up, buy the next airplane ticket home and leave Korean without telling anyone at work or any one of my friends here. Usually when I go home I reunite with someone; but it's always someone different.

More from Chuseok

Korean children all dressed up in their traditional Hanbok for the Chuseok festivities we hosted at school...



These two are sooo happy to be all dressed up! :)

The bad stuff...

I don't want to leave out the bad parts of my experiences here...

If I only speak of the good, then 1) it's not a real life experience and 2) you don't get the complete picture of what I'm doing here.

I'm not very happy at my job and I'm not even sure my job is 'teaching.' I'm given a book and way too many classes and told to 'get through the book.'

I truly believe my job title here should be Overpaid Babysitter. I'm not about to move home, but I truly hope I can find happiness in my work place...

일리노이

I have officially begun my attempt to learn to read Korean...this will be very useful in much of my daily life...

일리노이

Do you know what state in the U.S. the above word is....?

일리노이  il-li-no-i     ILLINOIS!!!!!!