Counting Down to Christmas Break

The busy season has officially begun around here, complete with colds to round things out. Midterm grades were due two weeks ago. Essays were due last week in my classes. My students had tests this week.

Next week are in-class essays and presentations. We also have Christmas programs next week. And then midterms. Oh my. The countdown to Christmas break is on.

I was lamenting on Instagram this morning that the only thing worse than not being able to prioritize what to grade first, is the guilt that I feel about the work that I'm not grading now. While I'm in the middle of grading tests (because I have to pass those back before midterms), I feel guilty about the fact that I'm not getting any essays done. Something's gotta give.

On top of it all, I have one of the worst colds I've ever had. Our colds this summer were miserable because it was summertime and because they lasted so long. This cold is painful, though. I don't think I've ever had so much sinus pressure in my face before. There were a few days this week where my students looked at me and said I should go home. (So did my principal, for that matter.) It was a good thing I didn't have to do much actual teaching this week.

Thankfully, I'm already feeling a bit better than I was at the beginning of the week, and everyone else seems to be fairly healthy.

There are only two more weeks of school (counting midterms, which are really short days for me!), and it will all get done...it always does!

The kids are also religiously counting down the days until my brother gets here and until Christmas Eve. It's an exciting time of year for those without deadlines looming! I suppose we should have some sort of Advent calendar going, but instead it has been good mental subtraction practice for Kennedy.

These are obviously some old pictures--there are no colorful leaves to be seen at this point in the year! It has been a warm week, though--in the mid-40s every day!

And now, I had better get back to those papers! If I feel guilt even while grading, you can imagine how I feel while blogging!!

What's for Dinner?

The latter half of our week was a little less exciting than the first half, thankfully. I did a little better actually taking pictures of our lives this week (okay, our food), so I figured I would grace you with a few lovely iPhone pictures.

I took my family to Haddon House, one of the biggest international markets here in Seoul. What a mistake. They were certain they needed everything! I was excited to find spinach, cilantro, and black beans.

Since my mouth was still a bit sore, I was still looking for soft foods. I made some cowboy caviar (which is much healthier when you have to use a fork, rather than chips as a vehicle) and Spinach Artichoke Dip pasta. Yum.

 

This week was Celebrate Korea days at school. Events like these always result in guilt for me--both as a mom and a teacher. What creative activity can I do in my own classroom to incorporate Korean heritage? What can I do for my kid's classroom?

 

I received loads and loads of "mom" emails asking for help with various projects in Kennedy's classroom. Of course, I couldn't really participate in any of them, but I was able to stick my head into her room for a few minutes between projects for my own classroom.

I updated my phone to iOS7. It didn't begin well. Took hours to update and then an error occurred and I had to restore the entire phone, but it turned out fine. I'm loving the update. I feel like I have a whole new phone!

On Saturday, Eric was supposed to have a baseball game in the middle of the day. My options were to send the kids with him where they would play in the dirt for a few hours, be hungry and cold, and surrounded by a bunch of guys who are drinking, swearing, and smoking--or I could take them with me to my soccer jamboree. There they had 30 middle school girls to play with, as well as 6 high school coaches to watch them. (Not to mention the fact that I am not actually on the field.) Needless to say, soccer won out. Kennedy had a great time photobombing as I figured out the new features on the iOS7 camera.

As it turned out, his game was cancelled yesterday, so he got to clean the house and get plenty of work done for school. He's making up for it by playing this afternoon on the other team. Unfortunately, I'm still not getting any work done.

The temperatures did drop yesterday. It never got over about 65 degrees and rained just a bit. I was in the mood for some nice, warm comfort food when we got home yesterday. Nothing says comfort like  a recipe with "supreme" in the title. Chicken Broccoli Supreme. It did not disappoint. A rich, creamy cheese sauce. Chicken, broccoli, Ritz cracker topping. Even the kids devoured it. Make it. Tonight.

Our Week

Sorry. Things have been quiet around here. Not around our house, of course, but here on the blog it's been quiet. And I can't even say why. Just quiet. Maybe it's because our lives just seem so peaceful compared to life in Nairobi. Or Peshawar. Or even Washington, D.C. And I'm pretty grateful for that.

We had a very restful five days off for Chuseok. That is primarily because I tend to be the one who says, "Let's go. Get out of the house. Anywhere!" But, when I'm the one laying in bed all day with a throbbing jaw and an awful headache, we don't tend to be too active. We watched a couple of movies: Silver Linings Playbook, Olympus Has Fallen (was that really released amidst all the turmoil with Enkay last spring?!), and Teach, the televised documentary. I would recommend all of them.

We finally left the house on Friday, having thrown out our plans to go the water park when Kennedy woke up throwing up on Thursday morning. She continued off and on throughout the day, so we figured we'd better keep things low key on Friday. Instead, we just headed to a nearby park just like every.other.Korean.family. It was busy! Kennedy was fine; apparently, she just had a quick bug--no fever or anything.

Saturday we managed to pick up some things for Kennedy's birthday party, though more stores were closed than we had planned on. It worked out okay, though. On Sunday, we finally caught up on some house work. My knees and back are still aching from all of the scrubbing I did. I can no longer say that I've never cleaned a bathroom in Korea.

The real fun began for us on Monday. Kennedy had a birthday party at the mall, so I picked up Cade and then went back to school to pick Eric and Kennedy. We had planned on dropping her off, picking up birthday presents for her, and then having dinner before we went to pick her up. Our plans were altered a bit when I didn't make a wide enough turn out of the school, and I hit the curb pretty hard with the back tire.

Sure, it didn't sound good, but we didn't think too much about it until later. By the time we got up into the parking garage at the mall, I could hear that all that was left of the tire was some floppy rubber. Thankfully, Eric was able to access the spare tire while Cade and I took Kennedy to her party.

We decided to just continue with our original plans, thinking that most places are open pretty late in Korea. We could get everybody back home and then Eric could take the car to a tire place. We were wrong. The tire place was closed by the time he got there.

That meant that on Tuesday, I had to cab it. So, of course it was raining! First, Cade and I walked up the hill to put him on the bus. Then I walked back home to pick up my stuff for school. Then I headed down the hill to one of the coffee shops to get a cup of coffee to break my big bill. That was only frustrating because I watched an empty cab pass by me when I didn't have small enough bills to pay him. I got my cup of coffee, juggling it with my computer bag and school stuff, and my umbrella. I got an empty cab without too much trouble and even managed to get in without spilling my coffee or dropping anything. Success.

I made it to school, taught my classes, and then headed back home to change clothes for soccer practice. After waiting for a taxi, I barely made it in the house to drop my stuff and change my clothes before I had to get back up the hill to pick up Cade. This time, the roads were dry and Eric had to take the car to get a new tire, anyway, so I figured the spare could handle the trip. Cade and I drove back to school. I walked down to the dentist (for the last time until I have to go back for a cleaning-yay!) and back again for soccer practice. Eric took the kids to go get a new tire.

It turns out that tires are one thing that Korean mechanics do not keep on hand, so after going to two places, he finally figured that we were just going to have to wait until the guy could get us one today. I managed to get the tire changed this afternoon (after only 5 minutes!), and I am finally able to eat solid foods again, so I would say that things are looking up around here!

Mt. Rainier on the 4th

Oh man. Life is so incredibly busy right now. It's hard to believe that it will ever slow down again.

Eric has been making me feel guilty about ignoring the blog. He thinks I should give up the 365 project, so that I can actually write on here every once in a while.

I still haven't really decided what I'm going to do. I know that something has to go; I just don't know what that is going to be yet.

This week Eric started his next class for his Masters, so he's feeling a little overwhelmed.

Kennedy started piano lessons on Mondays and swim lessons on Fridays after school.

I have soccer on Tuesdays and Fridays. Eric has cross country on Thursdays. We still have Lost on Wednesdays--our down time, believe it or not (when we're not grading while we watch!).

This weekend we have the back to school picnic on Friday night and our staff retreat all weekend. Last weekend we had soccer on Saturday morning and then Eric played in a baseball game in the afternoon. We were gone for 12 hours! On a Saturday.

Last night we had open house, so we had a nice, long 14 hour day at school.

And somehow we still continue to sign up for more things to do. When are we going to learn. Burnout looks like the only way to end this trend!

So, it's good to look back at moments from our summer. From time to time we felt relaxed last summer. I think.

On the 4th of July, we went "hiking" with some of Eric's family. We had a trail picked out, but when we arrived, we realized that we weren't really prepared for holes in the snow the height of Cade, so we gave up and went in search of another location.

We ended up eating lunch along the side of the road where we were able to access hard-pack snow to play in.

The weather was beautiful, the sights were amazing, and the air was clear.

The kids (big and small!) enjoyed throwing snowballs and sledding on their bums!

And we even managed to get a shot of all of us together.

Now, I'd better get some quizzes graded!

Soccer Saturday

Saturday was our first soccer jamboree (instead of 2 or 3 games a week, we play all day Saturday). What an experience! First off, let me tell you, it's haunting to go back now as a coach. I can't believe how much the girls remind me of myself and my friends at that age! It's really pretty scary. The other scary part is how much I remind myself of my dad when I'm out there telling them to "be more aggressive!". It is a lot of fun, though!

We got up early and headed to Seoul International School. 25 teenage girls and 3 coaches. Not a bad ratio (keep in mind I am the oldest of the 3 coaches!). Thankfully, our bus drivers knew where we were going because we certainly didn't! When we arrived on campus, we had to ask the girls where the soccer field was because we didn't know that either (2 of us are new to YISS this year, the other is entirely new to soccer). Once we got up to the field, though, things were pretty standard. Two fields back to back and a schedule of games and referees. 

This is a very different middle school soccer program than the one I participated in, though. For one thing, it's weird to me that we only have practice twice a week (Mondays are reserved for Immersion meetings, Tuesdays for staff meetings, and Wednesdays for discipleship so that leaves Thursdays and Fridays available). Sports are definitely not the priority on this middle school campus. That has it's pros and cons. Secondly, we only have 3 weeks of games. Only 3 jamborees, so it's a pretty short season. Thirdly, (supposedly) the jamborees aren't competitive. No one is keeping score (officially). We play 7 vs. 7 on half fields for 20 minute games. The girls don't know many of the rules, so the only real rule is no hand balls. They're just learning how to do throw ins, and they have no idea when to do a goal kick versus a corner kick. We were surprised that our 3 teams did really well, even with their lack of skill and knowledge of the game. It turns out this is the norm around here. One of our teams won all 3 of their games and the others won at least 1 game. It is really entertaining to watch, and I can't wait to go to practice this week and see what Miranda has lined up for them!

This one is my favorite! Jana cheering, June hit in the face!

I am really enjoying the laid back schedule and less intense atmosphere that allows me to go to practice once a week and spend a few weekends getting to know these girls better. I'll be ready when the season is over, but for now, I'm enjoying my soccer Saturdays.

Soccer Starts

One of the things I was excited to get involved in when I got here was coaching a sport. Because they don't offer golf or baseball, it was supposed to be my turn to play in the afternoon and send Eric home to hang out with the kids. After hearing about all that is going on every day after school, on weekends, and simply trying to adjust to life on a new continent, it seemed that this was going to be out of my reach. But, a couple of weeks ago, our athletic director sent out another email asking for volunteers to help out with sports. The plan was that the volunteers really only need to be there for weekend jamborees because high school athletes help out with the actual skills in practice. So Eric and I decided we would each sign up to volunteer with a sport (he with middle school cross country and me with middle school girls soccer). Eric assured me that the seasons do not overlap and there wouldn't be any conflicts, so we sent our emails. Within a day, we'd discovered that "volunteer" does not mean that you only show up for jamborees on the weekend and that the cross country and soccer season most certainly do overlap! So, Eric is running with the cross country team on Mondays and while we are still in search of high schoolers to help with the soccer team, I am practicing on Thursday and Friday afternoons (which is really nice because those are my days off, so by 3:30 I'm ready to get the kids out of the house and go play!). 

This weekend was our middle school soccer clinic at World Cup Stadium in Suwon. I was really excited not only to see the stadium and get out of Seoul for the first time in 4 weeks, but also to be able to say I'd played in a World Cup stadium! Awesome, right? It turned out to not be quite as awesome as we'd hoped. While they had charged our school a lot with the impression we would be in the stadium, we were actually on the training fields which were not in the best condition and so far away from the stadium itself that we only drove by it as we were leaving. A major disappointment. The clinic wasn't run very well, but it was still fun running some drills and interacting with the girls. It was hot and dry and we were glad that it was only a half day clinic! We'll know for next year!