today, i was truly humbled at work. 실장님 told me that some of the younger students think i am boring, so i should try to be a little more fun. man, that's like the worst thing to hear as a teacher. i even overheard one of the parents ask her when Joseph was coming back. the sad part is that i actually thought i was being fun and interesting.

there's this Koala joke that alotta the kids want to tell me, and it's supposed to be one of those Korean/English pun jokes. so every time i decide to tell them one of "our" jokes, i always get a really awkward response like...

me: what did the bus driver say to the egg?
students: "egg?"
me: yeah, egg!
student: what?
me: gehran the bus!
students: ...
me: ...
one student: ahahhahahahha.
other student: what?
one student: you know, "계란!"
other student: oooooh! ahahahhahahh. "계란!"
me: nevermind.

in addition to today's discouraging remarks, i've been a little down about my struggle with Korean. i know it's barely been a week, but i can't help thinking about it, especially when i say the most awkward things every time i talk with my dad. but i recall this tv show i saw last night, and they were doing a brief interview on this 104 year old grandma. she was like the funniest lady! she was saying how she lives very long because she eats so well. the program put much emphasis on the fact that the old lady loved to drink soju. anyways, a big thing that struck me was when they asked her if she was sad. she simply replied, "what's there to be sad about when you have lots of rice?" immediately, i was reminded of Matthew 6's Do Not Worry passage. with old age comes much wisdom. i shouldn't ever be sad about meaningless things of the world. if i ought to rejoice b/c i do not have to worry about food, how much more ought i rejoice in my salvation through Christ? with teaching English and learning Korean, i will merely do my best with what the Lord has provided for me. may i boast in my weaknesses so that Christ would be exalted!

remember how i told you i got 28 mosquito bites. well, just when you thought that 28 wasn't enough, i've been getting more every night. the crazy thing is that i'm confident that there's no mosquitos at my place. SO, i must be getting bitten by spiders or some non-American bugs i've never heard about. i always discover more when i go to take a shower. i'm a freakin' all-you-can-eat buffet for these Korean insects! ugh.

did you know that my English is retarding? you may not be able to tell but that's because i go back and read what i type in my entry. i seriously type the darnest things, and i get so ashamed as i fix my errors. pretty soon, i'm just going to stop talking. ciao for now.

Thought of the Day: Seminary.
Song of the Day: STP-Plush

i have officially completed one whole week in Korea. *APPLAUSE* thank you, thank you. you're all too kind!

last week, Meena told me that my students tried to guess what ethnicity i was. apparently, i'm the darkest thing alive in Korea, so i look very foreign to these people. i've never had anyone think that i was Egyptian before. freakin' Egyptian, man! one of my students knew that i was Asian, but he couldn't make up his mind about what kind of Asian i was. i guess Korean was out of the question. ignornant Koreans!

i finally got to meet up with some of my cousins over the weekend. it was really good meeting up with my cousin, woong-chan...my brother and i get a kick out of calling him "WC" (dub-cee). he's like the only Seventh Day Adventist i've ever met in my life. he would always invite me out to his church on Saturdays in the past, but i "rudely" refused to go with him every time. yesterday, however, i decided to be a little better about it and just see what it was like. there weren't any OBVIOUSLY wrong things about it, but i had a short conversation with one of their American missionaries (from Yorba Linda!) about their differences from other denominations. basically, they believe in a false prophet named Ellen G. White, long "sleep" until Christ's advent, and a hell where souls eventually die and not suffer for an eternity. apart from these, it looks like their doctrine of salvation looks pretty similar to ours. i don't know if they're being hell-worthy heretical or if they're just some whack denomination, but i finally checked out this church that my cousin's been attending.

we did some shopping, eating, visiting, and played ball at night. i freakin' hate the basketball courts in Korea-dirt ground with 9 ft hoops and croweded like a mother. you can't dribble properly or run any fast breaks cause you'll either travel or get hurt real bad. people always have to bow and apologize whenever they disrupt other people's games. nevertheless, basketball is basketball, and it's fun even with these crappy fobs. i even sprained my ankle last night but what can i say? THE GAME MUST GO ON! so i played with a jacked up ankle and still had lots of fun...and regretted it later this morning.

last night, i got 28 mosquito bites. five on my face. nothing else to really say about that. i'm itchy.

i started watching some Korean tv lately. i have to admit that they've got some pretty fun shows on the air. it's like one of those things that you hate to love. quite addicting and mindless material. but since my Korean sucks, i'm always looking up words in my Minjung's Pocket dictionary. you seriously don't realize how poor your Korean is until you come to the motherland. it's pretty humbling when you see 10 year olds use vocabulary that is nonexistant in yours. i get pretty angry whenever one of my girl cousins imitates my bad accent. i just want to chuck a brick at her insensitive face. but yeah, i learned how to order delivery and take a taxi this past week. i always have to rehearse what i'm going to say beforehand, but i'm getting better.

speaking of language, i've been getting mad love from the new people that i meet. you see, if you can speak English, you are crazy 멋있어 by default. i visited Lois' dad's church today and apparently, word had spread that i graduated from UCI. some of these fools compare Irvine to schools like Berkeley or Stanford. lol. i even got one comment like "oh, very prestigious!" ahahhahahaha. but more than that, i get a greater kick when i see how impressed they are when i tell them that i studied Psychology. it is truly Opposite Land. in the states, psychology is usually stigmatized as a cop-out major with no promising future. but in my experience, everyone here thinks i'm some kind of intellect? lol. they totally ignore my mention of minoring in Education. truly Opposite Land!

so if you've been praying for me regarding my search for a good church, pray no more because i've committed to Simin Church (Lois' dad's church). it just so happens that Reverend Cho is looking to start up a bilingual ministry, and he wants me to help him with that ministry. there's only a handful of people who can speak English at his church, so it actually fit my preference to get to know more Korean natives as opposed to meeting just Korean Americans. the church actually happens to be an hour away by subway, so it's quite the inconvenience for me to go out there every week. at the same time, i was also really encouraged by their service today. even though my Korean is lacking, i was still able to praise God with their 찬송가s (goodness, who says that you cannot be passionate when singing hymns?) and even understood the main points of the sermon (which happened to be pretty Christ-centered). i've never heard Romans 8:31-39 being preached so passionately in my life. of course, we cannot forget the major love bombs i experienced too. everyone was anticipating my coming like i was some answer to their prayers (i actually think i was), so they were already assuming that my commitment was set. even the family that drove me today was super kind to me. they took me out to watch "괴물" and bought me my first sweet butter 오징어 thing. haha. i already call him 형 and everything even though he's like 39?

so i recently discovered some pretty crazy things about the cell phones in Korea. i was randomly browsing through my phone's settings when all of a sudden, i ran into an interactive SUBWAY MAP on my phone! even the fobs here were amazed that i had such a function. but you think that's crazy? when i was in the car with the family that picked me up today, i was taken aback by the fact that the driver was using a navigator on his phone!!! it was like speaking to him and everything. you are 5 kilometers from here and there is a 찜질방 over there! he told me that he can use it while he's walking too. absolutely crazy.

ok, one last thing. i don't know if you'll read this, Janet Chong, but it is the FUNNIEST thing when 실장님 imitates you. i'm not going to even bother to explain. you just gotta be there. everyone, thank you praying and writing to me. hurry up, priscilla and jungabung!

Thought of the Day: "Gorgeous."
Song of the Day: How Great Thou Art

hello, friends. i finally have my own internet connection now. it is definitely a luxury to have internet connection at your own convenience.

i am slowly getting used to my work schedule and growing very fond of my students. according to Meena, one of my co-workers, i have the "super-star" kids, so i have it the easiest. i am basically taking over Joseph's class for 3 weeks until he comes back. he is supposed to be the "super-star" teacher of Elite, so i hear a lot about him. he indeed must be a great teacher because apparently, he had already told his students that i am a great teacher! haha. i've never even seen or spoken to Joseph in my life. anyways, it turns out that he assigned two of his classes to write letters to me for homework. i didn't receive anything until today. here is my favorite one:

Dear Phillip. Hello Phillip! My name is Jenny. I'm feeling that I'm writing to nonliving things like my pen, eraser or like that. I'm very glad that I would see you because Joseph is not teaching us and YOU are teaching us. When you come to Elite, please let us do the 'hang man' or 'stop the bus'. And Circle story. we'll like you to do it. I'm wondering which type of face you have. Please tell me about you next Monday. I'll introduce about myself. I'm Jenny. And I'm very good at writing (but not a grammar). My hobby is to play a computer game or write some poem or the story. I'll write the story named 'Allen's Secret Diary' next week. And my dream is to become a author or the famous poet. And about our class is there are three student in our Monday, Wednesday class. And Friday, there are 5 girls. so be careful. About my classroom, is the Cornell, the name of university. There are Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, Cornell. Yale and Stanford. About me (again) I am the most unfortunate girl ever. My pencil case was made of trees. so it broke when children played with it. (I am little popular in my class). Because I'm genious. ha haha!!! So, I changed the pencil case to the Soft pencilcase. And the ziper is broken and the ziper is not working neither. I have question for sir, 1. How old are you ? 2. Are you funny? 3. Do you like Joseph? 4. Would like me for call like 'Phillip' or 'teacher' or 'sir'? (About number three. I don't agree.) P.S Caution to you! watch out Joseph. And touch Joseph hair. and you'll get moch of luck. I'm very hoping Monday 5:30. in cornell. Sincerely, cly Jenny

the thing with Elite is that the students and teachers are not allowed to speak any Korean. everything must be in English! so when you put fobs in the same room who are forced to communicate in English, you get things like:

(girls making fun of Ray).
Ray: ho ho ho. berry funny! you keendugahdun! (Kindergarten)


there's nothing more rewarding than to hear one of your students learn a new English word and go aaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaa!!! in fact, one of my students today did it so abruptly that it scared me.

but at the end of the day, i am SO happy that tomorrow is Friday. this has been the longest week in my life!

Thought of the Day: There is an elite within Elite.
Song of the Day: OK Go-Here It Goes Again

hey, guess what! I'M IN KOREA!

janet chong was right. after one week, you feel like you've been here forever. well, i've only been here for two days, but i feel like so much has happened recently. thank you everyone for keeping me in your prayers. my CSETs went very well and the Lord brought me here safely without a single problem.

i can tell that my dad is really happy to have me here. he goes out of his way to spend as much time with me as possible-from taking the bus with me to work to driving all the way to my apartment just to fix some problems that i can totally do on my own. he buys me everything, which reminds me of my new cell phone!

camera, mp3 player, screen mirror, the works. it even animates my numbers when i'm dialing. when we were at the cell phone store, my dad asked me which one i wanted. i honestly could not choose cause they all looked too crazy. that is why i simply chose the cheapest one, which still happens to be the best phone i've ever seen in my life. those Hyori Anycall music videos sure did pay off.

i went straight to observation on my first day here and started teaching yesterday. my work schedule is pretty tough. 3:30-9:30pm M-F, no breaks. not to mention that i go into work at 1:00 to prepare for the lessons so i'm actually there right after i eat lunch. i think my work makes SLC look like paradise. by the time i get home, i'm so tired that i have no appetite. can you believe that? ME not wanting to eat good HONG-DAE food after starving for 10 hours?! it was actually a burden to eat dinner last night, so i didn't even finish it. something isn't right here.

i realized that i can't do this pc bang thing forever so i will have to get my own internet connection. it's really nice receiving emails, so please do go out of your way to write me a word or two everyday. haha. Korea is good. i can sure use some friends besides my dad and my boss, but everyday is a full day of new lessons. ?.

Thought of the Day: YG praise.

what the crap!

i had another dream that i was already in Korea again. i'm sure by now, you're really sick of hearing me talk about Korea all the time. what can i say? it consumes most of my mind's thoughts most of the day, most of the week. i just faxed over my signed contract and found out that i am being reserved to fly out Sept. 17th, 12:30am. in other words, i'm flying out late Saturday night. i've also been offered to get picked up by a "rimosine" when i arrive at Incheon Airport at 5:50am. isn't that crazy? my very own "rimosine!"

i got this one shot glass from D&B and there's a sticker that says:

STATE OF CALIFORNIA
PROP 65

This product contains or may contain a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects and other reproductive harm.

there's a sign outside my apt. that says the same exact thing. i'm not exactly sure what i'm supposed to do here. can i drink out of the shot glass? is my apt. unsafe to live in? why are these cancerous products exposed and available to the residents of California?

Thought of the Day: Must be the "rimo!"
Song of the Day: Byul-I Think I

my family and i did much labor on Labor Day. since i'm supposed to leave for Korea by the 16th, we decided to do some final furniture arrangements. my brother has declared it official. his hyungah, phil, has OCD. if i start organizing or arranging something, i have to finish it! we started our housework at noon. after taking a break at the beach, we came back around 8:30 at night and i didn't fall asleep til 5 in the morning. last night, i resurrected my old OLD Sony stereo system. my dad thought it was broken, so we almost threw it away when we first moved to Buena Park. right now, the Wu-Tang Clan is thanking me for keeping it alive cause ain't no better sound than hearing old school joints on an old school system. i still have the remote and everything! anyways, as i was busying away alone at night, i also came upon this:

i found 8th grade Pastor Dennis in my Kindergarten yearbook! that would be 1990 mind you. isn't that crazy? i wonder if Matthew 7:7 is still his favorite text.

while we're at it, why don't we throw in a 9th grade terrance:this is the skinniest terrance has ever been in my eyes. and look! he's with a girl! i don't know which one's more amazing.

Thought of the Day: Contract.
Song of the Day: Wu-Tang Clan-Bring Da Ruckus