Birthdays and School

Hello everyone! It has been a few weeks since I posted, so I thought I'd write an update.

There hasn't been much going on except school and the occasional social gathering. School has been going well. I am really loving my second grade classes this year. They are a great group of kids and seem mostly really interested in talking to me. I am especially surprised by the girls on the soccer team. Usually, they are totally apathetic and don't care about English whatsoever. This new group of second graders though is, for the most part, excellent. They are way more interested in me than they have been before. I even have one hilarious girl who makes faces at me whenever I look at her and says "hi" literally every time she sees me. It's great. The third graders are a bit crazy this year. For some reason now that they are in third grade, they are really loud in class, and they have been a little hard to control so far. Also, they are no longer divided into A, B, and C levels, instead there is A, B1, and B2, so Bs and Cs are mixed together. It's fine, and I'm hoping the C levels are understanding a bit more because they have the Bs to explain it if they don't understand. Either way, the B classes are really rambunctious, which has been a bit of an issue, but the A levels are pretty good. Some of the third grade students are lovely, so I'm glad to teach them again. Maybe it's because I taught last year's third grade students for the entire year, so I recognize their faces better, or because more of them are going to high school in the area, but I feel like I have seen way more of my third graders from last year as they are going to or leaving their high schools. It's been fun saying hi to all of them and chatting on the way home. Anyway, school is going really well, and I hope the kids learn a little bit more about the USA in this last semester.

We celebrated both Maria and Matthew's birthdays. For Maria's, we had pizza and played cards against humanity. Cards Against Humanity is like Apples to Apples by dirtier and more offensive. Basically, someone chooses a card with a blank space on it, and you have to use your cards to fill in the blank in the funniest way. If the person chooses your card, you get a point. It's really funny, and it was made even funnier at Maria's birthday because our friend Ben's father was visiting and came to dinner. The first time he was the judge of a round, the blank we all had to fill in was something a wife can do to please her husband. Needless to say, it was hilarious listening to a parent read the awesome responses. Funniest thing that we've done in a long time. After the party, it was already really late. Some people were going to get drinks downtown, but Maria and Matthew didn't feel like. Gianni wanted to go out, but I didn't, so we went our separate ways, and I had a sleepover at Maria and Matthew's house. We watched Singing in the Rain and played a card game called Shanghai Rummy. Super fun.

For Matthew's birthday, we ate at the only Western-style diner in Daegu, Lazy Diner. All day breakfast there is fantastic! Marie was fantastic enough to make Matthew dirt cake, which is basically just chocolate pudding or whipped cream and crunched up oreos with gummy worms on the top. It was fantastic. Marie is an amazing cook and baker. I really want to make her something for her birthday, but I don't know that I would make anything nearly as good. Again, we played cards against humanity. Matthew invited his Korean co-teacher, Ayoung, to the party, and she brought her friend. I don't know what was funnier, playing with Ben's dad or having to explain some of the sex jokes and slang terms to a few Korean girls. They were really brave for playing and hanging out with a bunch of foreigners. I don't know many Koreans who would be comfortable doing that. After playing for a bit, we headed to the board game cafe to play the dancing game and sing some noraebang. Ayoung kept saying, "how can you do this without being drunk?" I guess the answer is that we are all completely comfortable with each other, and if everyone is making a fool of themselves dancing, what is there to make fun of?