Monthly Archives: November 2010

life saving scratches

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*SIDENOTE*anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE background information/pointless information/telling stories/you get the point at this moment because this last / is meaningless. If you would like to read the heart and soul of this post, where I am sharing one man’s awesome story, skip down and read after the dotted lines.

Working at an international school, it has its perks. Not only do we get to celebrate Korean holidays (a weeklong Chuseok vacation? awesome), we also get to celebrate all the American ones. Yippee! I am pretty sure I was able to eat at least four Thanksgiving feasts last week, one of which was served at a restaurant on the military base (almost left my purse on base, with my i.d., and held the entire staff of my school up to go back and get it, that would have been bad, I had a headache okay?), another at a brazilian all you can eat (meat) restaurant (not your typical thanksgiving feast, but a feast nonetheless), another through an amazing banquet at my church, and the last at ICEC.

ICEC= International Children’s Educator Conference

the main point of this blog entry

You may be curious as to what possessed me to sign up (that’s right, I volunteered) to go to a conference during my Thanksgiving Break when I could have been sleeping in (and NOT waking up to get to school at 6:30 a.m. for the bus to the opposite side of the city) and catching up with all the friends I never get to see because work runs my life.

I was wondering the same thing up until the conference.

It was the beginning of the year. I was excited. And Fresh. It is my first year teaching. I couldn’t wait to log in some PD (that professional development for all you non-teachers out there) hours. You name it, I was excited. Then. At the beginning of the year. I didn’t really think that I was giving up a nice long holiday weekend.

And if I were to do it all over again I wouldn’t change a thing (maybe have the conference start and hour or two later… besides the point). The Conference Was Amazing.

I have many things to share. Pages and pages of notes = amazing stories and insight into education, life, working with 3rd culture kids. But first I will start with Wess Stafford (Dr. Wesley Stafford, I should say) and his story. Or a brief summary ^^

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(you know what this dotted line means)

Wess was a 3rd culture child who grew up on the Ivory Coast of Africa. His parents: missionaries. He grew up in a village where everyone helped raise the children, they were very poor. “Sometimes the only thing you have to give is love.” He was taught that important value among many, many other things. “Joy is a choice. You choose to be joyful.”

Due to the poverty 1 out 4 of his childhood friends died. “Daddy, when am I going to die?” A natural question to him, so he asked it. His dad pointed to the scratches on his arms. “You got those scratches in America before we came here, that means you are not going to die.”

By the time he was 15, half of his friends had died. Half. Friends would die because they gave their malaria pill to  another friend, or they offered their serving of food to someone else.

At 15-years-old, and as skinny as a rail, Wess Stafford came back to the States for the first time since he was a baby. New York City. He walked into his first grocery store and saw aisle upon aisle of food and was so confused. So… there was enough food? He walked next door into his first pharmacy and asked what was on the shelves. “Medicine.” He looked at the amazing abundance of pills that would have saved all of his friends lives, and he looked at all of the people walking around the streets, casually, like nothing was wrong.

No one cared.

He walked out into the street. Sat on the sidewalk. And wept.

He cried. And he cried. And he cried. New Yorkers just walked past. If anything, they were annoyed that he was in the way. They didn’t know what this poor boy was experiencing. The culture shock. He entered high school with a rage against Americans.

He later learned that it wasn’t that no one cared. It was that they just didn’t KNOW. And once people know, they care. They care a lot.

Dr. Wess Stafford is the President of Compassion International

Too Small To Ignore, the book Dr. Stafford wrote about his life story and how he came to create Compassion International. I need to read this!

for audrey

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i am becoming more educated.  as i sat in a lush faculty meeting room, in an international school located on the opposite side of this freaking large city that is seoul, and watched a 178 page (slight estimation-it might have been longer) “research project” thud on the table across from where i was sitting… well, i realized what a stupid decision my becoming more educated was.

i am getting my masters.

in korea.

from a university in california.

and my first class starts the day i fly back from christmas break in the states. awesome.

in other news i have felt like throwing up all day because i somehow got suckered into playing in a basketball game (lady teachers vs. girls varsity) this week. my basketball abilities extend to me at 10 years old having “bouncing the basketball as low to the ground as possible for as long as possible”  competitions with my four brothers (okay, I was 10 so it might have only been two brothers) on our dirt driveway. i highly doubt i can even dribble the ball down the court (which is fancy basketball talk for walking and bouncing the ball at the same time). i went up to the gym to convince ms.b (the coach) that i think i am coming down with a very rare case of basketgitis (see how I just replaced “laryn” with “basket”? i am so clever) and i should probably bench myself. she didn’t buy it. i now have to go home and get my tennis shoes so i can at least practice with the other teachers, all five of us who volunteered (mostly elementary teachers too might i add, i think it is because we are used to making ourselves look ridiculous in front of our students, anything for education!).

i have to go get my shoes now.

this yellow.

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I know how to judge when I am really busy in life. I see it when I look at my nails and realize I have had the same color on for more than two or three days (right now it is yellow and I am just TIRED of it, this yellow needs to go). With my new job, it has actually gotten to the point where I have worn the same polish for almost two weeks (okay… I am exaggerating only a little, maybe 10 days).

My students and I began discussing Christmas vacations today (it may or may not have had to do with me telling them everyday how many more days until I get to fly home and see my family) and one boy informed me that he is going to Russia! I was like, “Cool! to see family?” and he said, “No! Because I want to ride a ‘one horse open sleigh’.” Oh, right. That should have been my first guess seeing as how they are singing “Jingle Bells” for the Christmas concert.

Remember when I said I wanted to become a master at (in?) nunchucks? Totally still working on that goal… while at the same time I am reaching for that ever allusive black belt (again, that is not entirely true as it only takes about 1 year to get a black belt in Korea… as opposed to the 3 or 4 years it takes in the USA, hehe). I am now the proud owner of a beautiful purple belt and I am almost tempted to stay with it for a while, being that purple is my favorite color… but then I remember that black is the best and always makes females look slimmer so… back to the gym I go. Like actually right now. Which is why I must end this post. Hugs for everyone!

 

After I watched Kathleen take all of my purple belt testing pictures sitting down it made a lot of sense to me why she stopped after her yellow belt, thanks babe!

 

 

 

 

 

my eyeballs won’t cry. CRY. just. CRY. for CRYING out loud!

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I am choosing to look at the beginning of this week with new eyes (eyes that I WISH were full of tears right now to get out my frustration/stress/lack of sleep/emotional blablabla, still working on it…).

Not from the eyes of last week that saw a computer screen full of grades that required time-consuming input and were turned in (two days early) on Monday and then told on Friday (FOUR DAYS LATER) that what those eyes saw was all wrong and they needed to be done completely differently.

New eyes, now I know how to use Gradequick fully, entirely, completely. And so does every other elementary teacher who had to change their grades (which was the entire staff minus two people who magically did it “right”… aka it is actually right but every teacher has been doing it a certain way for the past however many years and are just now being told its wrong… I mean… never mind, okay okay, I am done, neeeewwww eeeeyeeessss).

I will decorate my classroom in construction paper hand-cut leaves. It will be magnificent. I will teach my students to the best of my ability. They will be magnificent. I will go back to the bank on Wednesday (because I forgot my passport today and HAVE TO HAVE IT to transfer money home). I will get my purple belt in taekwondo. I will tutor Han Wool and he WILL LEARN ENGLISH. I will conduct professional and efficient parent/teacher conferences. I will listen to the entire collection of podcasts from my church back home (they just started posting them this past May, I just discovered them last week, I already am halfway through the summer…).

I will cry? Please?