Twas The Night Before Christmas (again)

I got to have two Christmas Eve's this year! This morning I got up early and planned to walk to the airport bus stop. I brought both of my big suitcases because I was bring home all my summer clothes. So here I was trying to drag these big suitcases across the road, along with a heavy carry on, teetering on the top. The walk was a 20 minutes from my apartment in the snow. I finally gave up and got a taxi.

The flight was long, but good. My mom, dad and sister met me at the airport. They even made signs, haha! First we went home and had Christmas with my brother's family. Then we went out for our Christmas dinner to Olive Garden (my request!) Soon, we'll be heading to church for the midnight service. Man, long day, but it's been so great!

I was afraid that my two nephews wouldn't remember me, but thankfully they did :) They are truly the cutest kids ever. It's funny to be around kids who speak fluent English!

It's so good to be home!

Teacher! Seven More Sleeps!!

It's time to start packing! I thought I'd take the last few pictures around my apartment because I will start taking things off the walls to bring as much as I can home for Christmas. It's a weird feeling to take everything down! At this time next week, I'll be on a plane! Man, it's cold here now. I hope Michigan has snow when I get there. I haven't seen any yet this year!

My Giant Head

Yesterday in my 4th grade class, we were reading a story about sandcastles. They didn't know what a bucket was, so I was trying to explain using other words. We were comparing cups and buckets. One kid got all excited because he understood and said, "Oh, a bucket is giant like your head!" Hahahaha! He didn't know that was not a very nice thing to say. I laughed and laughed and the other kids just looked at me curiously. It's pretty funny teaching English as a second language. I sometimes crack my self up and they just have no idea what's going on. It's is pretty cool though when the students get to a point where they are able to joke in a foreign language!

Bad news

I found out last night that my aunt had a heart attack last night! This was a big surprise because she is just my parents age! It's strange being here when I get bad news about family members. I feel like I'm so far removed and there is nothing I can do. Thankfully my family is good about keeping me in the loop, so I feel somewhat connected.

My dad drove the 5 hours there this morning, which means 10 hours on the road altogether. My family was already planning to go there this weekend for a Christmas gathering. So my dad will be driving 20 hours! I'm proud of him for going though... Brothers and sisters are very special to all of us.

This Thursday, my small group is coming over to go ice skating and then come to my apartment for snacks and hot chocolate. I'm excited to have them over. I haven't had many people over to my apartment this year. I'm running out of time! :) I put up the Christmas tree (about a month ago haha!) and it will be fun for them to see my Christmas decorations.

The Tooth Fairy

Well, I can now add one more thing to my resume....tooth fairy. This week, my student came to me grinning ear to ear, proudly displaying the hole in his smile. He'd lost his first tooth. He went on to tell me that I needed to take the tooth. Confused, I asked why I should take his tooth. He gave me the, "Duh!" look and said, "Teacher! Take my tooth with you to America and put it under your pillow!" When I asked why, he said, "The tooth fairy only comes to 'English' people's houses!" Hahaha. So, I supposed I would take the tooth and be the tooth fairy. Oh man, I never thought I'd have to be the tooth fairy before having kids ;)

On Friday, he opened up in hand and showed me a wadded up kleenex. He informed me the tooth was inside. He picked apart all the shredded kleenex parts and......there was no tooth. It had fallen out on the way to school! His eyes got real big and I could see the tears coming, so I thought fast! I told him we'd write a letter to the tooth fairy explaining the situation. So, now I just can't forget to bring back American money. That'd be terrible if the "tooth fairy" forgot!

I'm discovering lately that I've been learning so much in these last couple of months about myself. Not just the self that I portray, but the true motives behind things, my own pride and ultimately my fears. I think rarely do we ever dig deep enough to reveal what's under all those layers (insecurities, culture, defenses, personality, etc.) to see who we really are. How can we see other people the way God wants us to, when we don't even see an acurate picture of ourselves. I suppose this will be a lifelong journey that I'm on.

If I had to pick a theme for my year here, I would pick, "relationships." I am learning so much about friendship. It's fun to be surrounded by other young people in my small group that have similar mindsets. We encourage each other to take the Bible literally and challenge each other on the hard issues. Not that my relationships weren't real before, but I think my attitude and expectations of each relationship I have, have changed. Friendships, even with unbelievers, can be used to glorify God.

Hard to believe it's only 3 weeks till I'll be home for Christmas!

어서오세요!

On Saturday, I met up with a Leah House from home! We grew up in the same church, but hadn't really kept up with each other since high school. She is studying in China for a year and was here visiting her Korean friend! I was a little nervous to meet up, since we hadn't talked in years...but there was SO much to talk about! First of all, it's just strange to meet up with someone from home in a foreign country. We caught up on each others lives and what we'd been doing.

It was actually really cool, because we'd both now, been to both China and Korea. It was so interesting to compare cultures! I'd forgotten many of the things that she brought up. It was fun to reminisce about old memories. It was also fun because she brought up names of people from our church growing up. It was fun to laugh about things that only people from home would think was funny.

Leah is practically fluent in Chinese. It was so strange to hear Chinese come out of a white person's mouth! She brought along two of her friends. One was Chinese, so she spoke with her some of the time in Chinese. Her other friend was Korean, so I thought it was kind of fun to practice my Korean on her :) So, here we were sitting at a restaurant speaking Chinese, Korean and English! How cool is that!? Of course her friends spoke perfect English, which put my basic Korean to shame. They thought it was fun ( or maybe funny!) to help me practice Korean.

We had a great reunion, even thought it was only for one night :( It was so cool to see someone from home!

Mean Teacher

Yesterday, I had to be the mean teacher. At the end of the day, one of my girls did something that she knew she shouldn't have done. I looked at her and told her not to do that. She was angry at me and out of her anger she spouted off something sarcastic to me. I put on the mean teacher face and got really stern with her. I calmly said some things to her in a really firm voice. Everyone in the classroom got really quiet and the girl got teary. I really don't think the girl had ever had anyone be that direct with her before. She went to her desk, put her head down and cried.

I felt bad that my firm voice scared or upset her... I don't like being the mean teacher very often, but it needed to be said. What happened next though was the most interesting. She sat in her chair until it was time for her to go. I just started playing with the other kids, being my normal self. The girl kept glancing up to meet my eyes to see if I was angry with her. Of course I wasn't.

It makes me sad when I see other people just keep glaring at the kids when they do something wrong...maybe even an hour later! I guess my philosophy is discipline and be done with it. They don't need to keep being punished!

When everyone else had left, she still had big tears in her eyes. When I asked her if she knew why I was upset, she nodded. Most of the time when she misbehaves, she denies it and gets really mad at me. This time was different. She knew she had done something wrong and she just wanted to hug me! So surprising! I just hugged her as she cried. I think for her it was such a relief to know that I still loved her, even when she messed up!

It reminded me of the way God loves me. Of course I do things wrong, and he may even discipline me, but he really just wants me to come and hug him, admitting what I've done. These kids are beginning to teach me a little more about unconditional love. I truly do think that I've learned way more this year than I could ever teach.

1 month from today I come home for Christmas!!