Kid Comments and "What Not's"

Four of our GT4 classes. I am apparently a Dr. Seuss cat with the crazy socks and orange shirt-yeah...
Jon's GT2 class.
My favorite class, GT1. They are so expressive, fun and eager to learn-I love them!
Seriously the best outfit I have ever seen-the muscles just really make it all. He kept flexing and it was hilarious.
Our GTi's and GT1's packed into our little library. Congrats to Jon in the back for getting 50 little kids to sit quietly on Halloween.


After two weeks of school, Jonathon and I have enough fun comments from students to make another long blog. But hopefully, not as long as the last!
Before starting in with the funny comments, I would like to take some time to talk about food. As I write this, I am drinking chestnut milk. I just returned from a HomePlus Express to get cereal and had seen this bottle before and decided I'd be brave and splurge on the 25cent drink.
Whether or not it's really made with chestnut's, I'm really not sure-it tastes more like the milk in your cereal bowl after you have consumed the actual cereal part... So, maybe I won't be buying that one again, oh well.
Over the last two weeks, Jon and I have obviously been having a lot of rice mixed with every kind of Korean food. I love rice, but sometimes it's good to change things up a bit. So today, I had a really big craving for some good spaghetti. Luckily, we had bought noodles and pasta sauce at HomePlus last week. I whipped some up and sat down to snarf it down and after my first bite, realized it tasted like someone had also put kimchi and red pepper paste in my pasta sauce! Being the Italian girl that I am, this was very devastating. You aren't supposed to put red pepper paste in your pasta! You put celery, onion, garlic, meat, tomatoes and lots of good Italian spices, but no kimchi and no red pepper sauce! Moral of the story, do not buy Korean spaghetti sauce, it's not the same. I feel a strong duty to my Italian roots to try and make a decent sauce (even though the tomatoes here are pretty poor) or at least buy a good American kind and therefore, spending a little extra won.
Kiddies!
From the first time we walked into the school, Jon has been constantly surrounded by little Korean students trying to jump and touch the top of his head, climbing up his legs or running to give him hugs; they all love him. During the first day of teaching, I allowed each of my classes to ask me some questions to get to know me and connect with me. But every time, there was always a student who would immediately ask about Jonathon, not about me, but why Jonathon was so tall! I would respond by saying he drank a lot of milk but they must have heard him say that he ate all of his vegetables and would correct me immediately in their insistent Korean way. It is also funny to see the expression of both adults and children when we are walking about and they will point and hang their mouths open as they watch this giant Jonathon walk by-haha. I feel like most of the young Korean men are not much shorter than average Americans, but I guess it's a big enough difference when compared to my Jon.
Every weekend, my students write in diaries and during the week I read and comment on them. Most of the students talked about Jonathon and I coming and how they were excited to have such nice teachers. The girls are also very excited that we are married but the boys usually just laugh and think that it is funny that teachers can be married. In some of my journals, the girls talked about how my hair is "almost white". When I read this, I immediately thought of Kari, Jon's sister because her hair is beautiful and bright blonde. So, when she comes to visit, I know they will be amazed at her height as well as her brightly colored hair even more than mine! One last story from my classroom is about one of my favorite girls, Yu-ri. Yu-ri gives me a hug each day, but recently, she's been very interested in my pasty white skin. --In Korea, light skin is a very wanted and 'honored' thing to have. Korean women even have special every day make-up to make their face white.--So my pastiness is really something special, I guess. Yu-ri will come up and just gently rub my cheeks and say how soft they are and just stare at them. It really is funny, but maybe you have to be there, see her face and hear her accent, haha. It is definitely not something I am used to in the States!
Halloween
Although I do not celebrate Halloween and I would rather go to a Harvest Festival, because our school follows American traditions and holidays, Polaris had a Halloween day. The day consisted of having a rotation of students playing a game in each teacher's room. I decided upon Halloween Pictionary and tried not to have too many creepy pictures/words. At the end of the day, Jon and I got to teach a couple of games together with our fourth grade students. One of the games that they loved was "Honey if you love me, will you please, please smile". We had an even amount of boys and girls and even though the point was to get the person to laugh by saying this line, the boys of course would only ask the boys. I did think it was funny that the girls were willing to ask Jon because he seemed to be an easy target and would laugh and then be in the middle.
So okay, maybe I didn't succeed in writing a shorter message this time, but oh well. haha.
This week went by very quickly and it is nice to have a weekend break and go to church on Sunday. Thank you so much for your comments, I love to see them and hear from you!