The injury

I have decided to dispose of the empty chuppa chup tins as soon as my students have finished eating all of the lollipops. That way they won't be lying in wait on my apartment floor for me to stumble over in the dark and sprain parts of my foot or, rather, my big toe.

New Years

Dear Dutch people.

If anyone has any extra Oliebollen lying around, or maybe a few Crouquets, do you think you could take some time to pack some with a little icing sugar and mustard and send it over?

Sincerely,

The one craving said Dutch traditions

p.s. And maybe some dropjies while you're at it...

Remembrance and chocolate

On this day: Remembrance day in Canada, Veteran's day is the US, and Pepero day in Korea.

For myself, remembrance day was always very emotional. The last four years the Redeemer choir sang at the memorial service at the Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton and the songs we sang for that service have been going through my head all day. The pieces chosen for that event all seemed to touch my soul in a different way.

I listened to those pieces on my way to school this morning.


I arrived at school and I discovered it is Pepero day in South Korea today. A sort of valentines day where students give their teachers and each other a popular Korean snack called Pepero: a stick covered in chocolate. The students were flooding the office all morning to give their favourite teachers some pepero and every was happy and cheerful about this holiday.

Way to ruin the mood, Korea.

Relocation

It's Thursday of my first official week of teaching. It's been....an experience. The kids here are really great and the whole week has been pretty awesome. I've met other foreigners and even some Koreans who speak English, which is always good. Everything was going really well and then my co-teacher threw on me yesterday that I was going to be moved from my cozy little apartment into something....new.

I'm not going to lie I was a little freaked out. I wasn't really sure what was going to happen and I was finally feeling nice and comfy in my 'flat'.

My co-teacher took me for a drive to see if we could find the building. We trucked around a kind of sketchy part of town and I was getting more and more anxious. I was happy where I was but it was not possible to stay there because it was the higher-ups who decided this. Mrs. Shin gave trying to find the 'Seyoung' building and we started to head back to my apartment. And then she spotted it.

Let's just say I'm not so anxious anymore.

The building is new, and owned by the father of a student at the school. The apartment is bigger and, best of all, I think it even has an oven! Clearly the only thing lacking in my current space.

The big move will be in December, so I'm going to be packing my backs and heading South, a couple of blocks.

Whoa

Something just walked into the PC bong....I think it might have been a girl.....

Either that or it was a guy with long hair, a pink coat, tights, and a skirt.

There have been stranger things to happen....