For every failure there is a triumph.....

This last week, we were doing some English exercises (as one often does in an English class) and I called on one of my students to complete a certain exercise. The sentence was "The lights went off." She was supposed to make it into a sentence with a time clause or something. She looked at the sentence, looked at me and said "This mean.... cat feed me dinner eats?" ........

I really didn't know what to say. I felt like a complete failure. Why am I even trying to teach anything?

But last night, Jason and I heard a knock on the door- actually it was more like a bang and a bit of muffled Korean as they tried to get through the screen door. There stood my students. They handed me a plate of freshly made kim-chee pancakes and smiled and giggled. I had never eaten Kimchee and it was VERY good. Along with the pancakes, they handed me a card that simply said "THANKS". In that simple gesture, all my failures were forgotten and I felt hope again.

Star Sightings...

First, can you guess the famous star in this photo?

I will tell you if you are right at the end of this post.

This weekend, Jason's dad, step-mom and step-brothers came to visit. We were going to go hiking at Joshua Tree but then realized that it was really far away. So then we decided to go to San Diego instead. Ha. Well, yes San Diego is farther than Joshua Tree but whatever....

We went to old town San Diego. Here is a picture of me outside the old prison!

Then we went and saw the oldest wood hotel in the US. Or something like that. It was beautiful with the full moon and everything!

Sunday the adults had to go to a conference so us kids went surfing. I actually decided to just lay there and read a book while the guys surfed and that is what I did. It was a really nice day. Then we drove around and looked at the beautiful mansions of Bel Air and walked around the UCLA campus.

Then we went to get ice cream and happened across a movie premiere! Jason let me jump out of the -slowly- moving car so I could see the stars as they were just beginning to walk in. If you guessed Brad Pitt, you are RIGHT! It was the premiere of "Babel". All the stars were right across the street from us. I guess we missed Richard Gere. Jason's step-brother Phil was heckling Brad Pitt. Yelling "Hey Brad" Trying to get his attention when the rest of the crowd was silent. It was embarrassing. But he got some good pictures so I didn't mind that much. Plus now Phil can say that Brad Pitt has heard his voice. Heh. It was really too bad that I was the only girl there. Because all the boys were like "This is so ridiculous. Who cares if it's Brad Pitt. He's just a human like us." So that was uber-annoying. Like I think he is a god or something. Geez, snobs.

I have been trying to add more pictures of Brad Pitt and a picture of Cate Blanchett but I am having technical difficulties so maybe I will add them later. Yeah, I saw Cate Blanchett. She was really pretty.

So that was my weekend. It was fun!

Halloween Party Korean style

My students have been planning a Halloween bash for about a month now. They don't celebrate Halloween in Korea and had only seen Halloween in the movies. So they were VERY excited. They wrote out beautiful invitations and I explained all about RSVPs and Halloween traditions.

I told them that some people don't celebrate Halloween because they think it is worshiping he devil. I told them about bobbing for apples and trick or treating. Then I told them that some people kill black cats on Halloween because they think they are evil. I realized I gave them the wrong idea when I read one of their diary entries (a school assignment): "We learned the holiday Halloween. Some people don't celebrate Halloween and kill cats because they think they are evil." Oops.

Their oven was broken so they came to my house to bake pies and such. I made some rice Krispie treats because they said they don't have them in Korea. Those are pretty easy to make. Here I am walking out the door to the party with my costume and my treats. I am an Indian...er... Native American.

My mom made this cosutme for me for last Thanksgiving. She likes us to dress as Indians and Pilgrams for our meal. It is quite a sight. Anyway, this is a picture some of my students in their costumes. They decorated their house up nicely!

A lot of people came. I was glad becuase NO ONE RSVPed. I was actually kind of embarrassed. I taught them about RSVP and then no one did. They borrowed a Japanese horror movie to watch. They told me it was really scary. I didn't think it would be that bad so I watched it. It turns out that this is the movie that "the grudge" is made from. "The grudge" is just the English version. I never saw "the grudge" because I really didn't want to. So I was tricked into watching it with subtitles basically.

After that, I taught them to play spoons. They really got into it and there was a lot of shrieking and trash talking. Then we played black jack and rummy.

I had taught them those games earlier during a culture class. None of them knew any card games except "one card" which is uno with playing cards. Anyway, we had a good time and I want to have a Halloween party every year. That would be fun.