7 months...Phew!

Well, it's been a while since I've written; I'm terrible at keep up with this. Goodness gracious where to start? I guess first and foremost I will start with the passing of a friend here in Korea. Her name was Yvonne, she was 29 years old, and she was from Whales. After she returned from the Philippines on vacation, she died from an infection that spread to her blood stream and she contracted septicemia. We were all shocked to hear the news and it all happened so fast. She will be greatly missed by all of us here. Please keep her friends and family in your thoughts.

Alrighty, let's see. Nothing really exciting has happened. This semester I'm teaching 3rd grade and 5th grade (last semester I taught 3rd and 4th) so it's a bit different. I miss teaching 4th grade but it worked out pretty well because I'm now teaching my old 4th grade students and they already know me and my teaching style. So that's pretty good. I've become more playful with the kids. They LOVE to play rock, scissors, paper...and once you play with one student they ALL want to play. It gets kind of crazy and we'll have like rock, scissors, paper wars. They're all really fun and I try to get them to use as much English as possible but I still can't have a conversation with them so that's kind of a bummer because I want to know more about them! I'll work on it some more. Also, this semester I have FOUR co-teachers instead of two so it's a bit strange because each teacher has a different teaching technique and they all have different ideas on how they want me to participate in the class. So far, so good. One of my co-teachers does not speak English as fluently as the others so he has decided that I will take over like 95% of the class. I have to say...I LOVE IT. I like to be in control of the entire class and not have to share time with another teacher. So, that being said, Thursdays are my favorite days to teach because I can teach those 3rd grade classes all on my own ;)
I haven't learned any new songs on my guitar...I still play but I just keep playing the same TWO songs over and over because I'm now too impatient to teach myself another song. I'm having trouble with strums...I thought I had rhythm but...apparently I don't. Lol. I also now have a keyboard so I'm going to be teaching myself some new songs on the piano here soon...I've got Adele on my list of artist's songs to learn. Then...maybe...I can do an open mic night here...yeah, we'll see about that. I'll have to work on building my courage there too!

A trip to Costco is in my schedule this week and I'm SUPER excited. I have some foods I've been craving and I can't get them anywhere but Costco. Like, for example, REAL pickles. Goodness, I have been CRAVING some real pickles. Korea likes to sweeten their pickles and I have to say...it's no good. Korea got that one wrong. We'll need to fix that immediate. Costco...HERE I COME!

My sisters are coming to visit in May! I CANNOT WAIT! I am so excited to see them again. They'll be here for a couple of weeks and seriously, I would be happy with just sitting around watching movies and eating Ritz crackers with cheese and salami...just like we did on the holidays. I miss them sooo much and when they come, Korea better look out; the Stansfield sisters are going to show you how it's done!

It's been SEVEN months! Gosh that sounds strange. I've been away from home for SEVEN months. For the past few weeks I've hit a rough patch. I seriously went into a depression phase and stayed there for two weeks. I missed my sisters, I missed my friends, I missed my coworkers...EVERYTHING. I stayed in my apartment doing absolutely nothing for a couple of weeks...ugh. It took seven months for that phase to kick in...and it hit hard. I think I'm pretty much myself now...and I know I'll have another bout like that again while I'm away but hopefully it'll get easier. I mean...I think I'm staying for another year so I'll have to figure something out!

Alrighty...those are some updates for ya. Hopefully it won't be another several months before I write again!