friday night

so once again its friday night and i find myself so happy to be in my apartment watching tv, surfing around the internet and not doing anything. ahhhhh its so nice! this week and the next two weeks are going to be some of the busiest i think thus far. and the reason : open class! oh yes mommies and daddies come and observe english class!

i have to watch my attitude with open class because i kind of feel, hey, this is me, i do my best every class, so i pull out some of my best games and go forth to the intimidating open class. but my amazing coteacher yanny is freaking amazing and makes like the sweetest crafts ever. so she gives me ideas....so i make the ideas but i have no idea how i am going to use them. slightly frustrating...ok, really frustrating. and every night being up till 2 am....then next week we will have "practice" for open class. and we will have monthly tests and evaluations for the afternoon classes. and then june 30th we start the week of open classes. then each day that week will be open class. oh the joys of teaching. haha...luckily for me im the foreign teacher.

i actually went running monday night. amazing, eh? i really would like to start running again but i dont like walking 20 mins down to the river, so there is an elementary school with a track. but it is packed pretty much all day. and i was up at 1am so i decided to go and there were still like 4 people just hanging out there. but you know, sometimes you just have to put your earbuds in your ears and embrace the foreigner-ness. i dont really like to do that, but i feel like its kind of necessary at times.

for example (my foreignerness) i now wear these "samdidas" sandals - mock adidas flops for some of you - i love them, they are my style and so i wear them all the time. some of my korean friends like to give me crap for it because they are house slippers. people don't really wear them out in public - and especially to go out with friends! but yanny told me, it doesn't matter. you can wear them if you like. hmmm, i can wear them if i like. it doesn't matter. and i realized with that statement that i try so hard to learn about the culture and fit in that i never say, it doesn't matter...i always ask, can i wear this, should i wear that, can i do this, should i do that. and i think that is a great attitude to have - but as yanny said (sometimes) it doesn't matter. and so sometimes i pop my ipod on, put my head down and i embrace the fact that i am a foreigner and probably a little weird. thats ok.

side story: i told my friend Amy that i wore the samdidas sandals to gangnam and she just about died. You wore them to GANGNAM? thats like the biggest fashion area!!! and you wore those!!!! and you went to a club!!!!!...yes. they didn't want to let me in, but they did, after they asked me how much i spent on them. only 3,000 won....ok, you can go in. hahaha i dont know.


as my friend Q said, "Amber, you are like one of the 4400." Unbelievable but true. :)