November: Let's recap, shall we?

Well, this month, like all other months, flew by. There have been some big developments in November, though.

I had my golden birthday last week, which I was pleasantly surprised had not been forgotten. I didn't forget it, of course, but some of my students actually remembered it as well (I guess I mentioned it at the beginning of the semester). So I got surprised with a cake, and I had a few dinners with different people of the course of the week to celebrate. It was pretty sweet, as in precious and as in cool.

Finishing the week of big dinners was a Thanksgiving celebration that I had with some of the exchange students from Dallas Baptist University and some Korean students. We were able to have the dinner in the DBU students' friends' apartment, which was huge and immaculate. And it had a full kitchen (which the three guys living there never use--what a waste) that I was jealous of. We tried to get a turkey (I wrote a question to Ask the Expat about it--you can read the reply here), but weren't able to, so we just had chicken. But we were able to make mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, corn, stuffing, and some other things, and we actually got pie! Yummm.

I have joined not one, but two choirs this month. I'm singing most of Handel's Messiah with a newly formed community choir, and it is awesome. Being in a choir has filled a major void in my life here. Singing is one of the most natural things to me, so I really missed the opportunity to share it with other people. There are a lot of cool people in the choir, too. Many people my age, also teaching English, also interested in music. I've also gotten to like Indian food (maybe I just didn't give it enough of a chance before, maybe my tastes have changed), and tried hookah with some of them. The hookah was kind of nice and not really like smoking, which I don't care for. Probably the nicest thing about it, though, was the fact that the hookah bar was much quieter than a bar bar, so we could actually talk.

Korean classes are going well. My private tutor is leaving for Brazil (!) next year, but I think I'll be able to find a new conversation partner once she leaves. My speaking is starting to get decent. My Korean students tell me I have good pronunciation, but there is so much that I want to say that I don't know how to say. Plus, my listening comprehension is terrible. I need more listening practice for sure.

It's slowly getting colder here. Actually, the temperature outside has yet to catch up with the temperature in the classroom buildings here. This is a Korean thing that many Westerners complain about: during all times of the year, Korean schools leave their doors completely open, and sometimes the windows, too. The classrooms are individually heated, but once you step out of them, you'd better wear your coat or you'll at least be cutting glass. Anyway. . .

I've discovered some new Korean foods I really like. Actually, both of them are soups, and one of them is really Japanese. The Japanese one is shabu-shabu, which is kind of like a make-your-own soup. You sit at a table with a burner on it, and then you heat up a pot of water on the burner in front of you. Then, you put thinly sliced meat and vegetables in the boiling water. It's fun to see the meat cook in front of you. The broth gets really delicious by the end, and you put yummy noodles in at the end as well. I think I'm going to be eating that a lot this winter. The other soup (actually Korean) is kalguksu (칼국수), another noodle soup with some seafood in it. It's actually savory, not spicy like most Korean foods. And I do love savory. A resturant just outside the front gate of LTU makes this soup for a pretty cheap price, so I might be sick of kalguksu by the end of winter, too. Unlikely. I freaking love soup.

Let's see, what else . . . this is the last week of university classes. Finals are next week. I have one more week of kids and TESOL classes after that, and I cannot wait for a break from the kids. I'm getting tired, they're getting tired, and I think they're listening to me less these days. I also have one class where one of the students is the odd one out or something. He's always in conflicts with the other kids, or the other kids pick on him. So I'm trying different ways to deal with that. I don't want to draw attention to the conflicts, so today when I came in and he was crying, I tried to give the other students a game to play while I talked to him and the boy he was fighting with separately and quietly. It's hard to mediate a conflict with a language barrier, but I think it worked semi-decently today. I like the kids, but I'm finding that I like them better individually than as a whole class. Any other teachers/mentors care to comment on this?

I have a full break in less than three weeks, and most of my family will be here in four weeks! Yaaaaayyyy!