It's been too long!

So yeah, you're all right! I don't post enough!! After something exciting happens I'm usually too tired to post and then I get busy doing something else exciting! Well... here comes a long one so hold on to your seats!

Last week at work was fairly normal. I'm starting to get the hang of marking thoroughly and quickly. It's going to be a handy skill in the future I can just tell. So work has seemed a little bit more relaxed because I'm not marking up until the second of my deadlines. I have a bit more breathing room. I have been having a bit of troubles with kids who don't do their homework though. There are the type that are so serious about studying that they fall apart bawl their little eyes out when they forget homework at home. Then their are the ones who know you're a bit of a softie and when they miss their homework they rub their eyes and I'm sure they are trying to think of sad thoughts the whole class just so they won't have a detention. ARGH!! Well then there are the ones that have stayed to finish homework everyday for the past year, so when they actually do their homework they are so astonished that they don't have to stay! hehe... They are also pretty relaxed about having to stay when they don't do it.

I'm starting to get to know my students more and more too. They are such interesting little people with amazing hobbies. One of Curtis' students absolutely loves robots. He and his dad applied for a robot making camp and they were selected out of quite few different applicants. He is so excited to go, he is always talking about it with Curtis. I'm really loving the teaching side of things. Sure I come home exhausted, but I get so much out of it.

Since the first weekend we arrived, our academic director, Rachel, has been tying to organize a good time for us to come to her house and have a meal with her family. First of all, it's so sweet of her to invite us to her home. We hear that it's really rare for a supervisor to be so personal. So last weekend was finally when things were settling down for her at home and she extended us an invitation for lunch on Saturday. She even showed me how to make Kim-bap! Curtis and I had been introduced to Kim-bap because it's basically the equivalent to a sandwich back home. They take it for picnics and eat it cold. It's a lot like a sushi roll except there is no raw fish. They put ham, fried egg, pickled radish, carrots and spinach in them. It was Rachel's mom who mostly showed me how to make it. Rachel's parents moved in with her after they retired so her mom does all of the cooking. I couldn't speak Korean too much, but it was still neat to see how it was done.I as pretty good at making my Kim-bap stick together too. All of the components were in the middle which they said can be tricky at first. It was great to see a real Korean family too. Rachel's son was really cute and shy. To get him to open up I pretended to tickle him. He giggled like crazy and skittered across the floor. A while later Curtis tried it too, but he really caught the poor kid off guard because he started to giggle at first and then he cried! He eventually emerged from the bedroom and was playing with his toys again, but I think Curtis is one guy he'll never forget!

So another exciting part of our lives here is Matt and Amber! Matt had made plans to celebrate Amber's birthday on Saturday and we hopped in when we were finished with out lunch at Rachel's. Amber, Matt, Eddie and Gisella went ice skating in the afternoon and we were all hungry by the time we caught up with them. We ended up deciding that Hooters... yes I said Hooters... would be the best place to celebrate followed with a good round of Nore-bang. Nore-bang is like Karaoke except you aren't in a bar. You're in this private room with couches that you rent by the hour! It's really great! There is no smoke if you don't want it, you don't have to wait and the song selection is deadly! Curtis even found some of his music on there!! We had an amazing night singing, clapping and playing the tambourine!! It was our first night out and we were both glad we saved the Nore-bangs till Amber and Matt could introduce us properly. :)

The subway here closes stops running at abou 12:00 so we wanted to make sure to catch the last train home. We were also getting a little hoarse too so we decided to head out at 11:15 giving us plenty of time to catch the last train. We needed to transfer and we got our route figured out and were on the last train. We relaxed in and started counting stops till we had to transfer again. When it was getting a bit closer to out stop we started to look at the map to see exactly how many more we had to go. None of the names of the stations we'd recently passed matched the ones near our transfer point... we had taken the train going the wrong direction!!! It was about 10 past 12 and we got off hoping against hope that another train would be comming soon. For the opposite direction. About 2 minutes later a man in a uniform came onto the platform and told everyone that there were no more trains and that the platform was closing. ARGH!!! We decided that since we didn't know the bus system very well, the best way would be to take a cab home. We figured that it might be as much as 70 bucks in Canada for that distance and we really didn't have any other options. We hailed a cab and asked for the nearest subway station to our house. We were in the cab and hour, and the cab driver was so far out from his usual circut that he stoped to ask another cab driver for directions!! We started to recognize signs again and sighed deeply. HOME!!! It's so funny to think of this place as home, but there is still nothing more soothing than knowing where you are! We got out a little ways away from the subway station and walked the rest of the way home. We were so surprised to find out that the fare was only 35 bucks! I couldn't believe it! So we were snug and safe at home and not even feeling too jaded about the money we'd wasted.

After all of this excitement... Matt and Amber decided to come visit our neck of the woods. I think they wanted to make sure we were well taken care of. Also, we hadn't really spent alone time with them in over a year and a half. The good old Camrose days are a thing of the past and we usually saw them for parties in Edmonton. It was so nice just to hang out and have them read our signs for us! hehehe... I learned more about my neighbourhood that night than I have in one month! We went to Nore-bang again - I think we're addicted - and then watched some of "The Office". We got up in time to have a real birthday breakfast for Amber - breakfast bagels... yummm! Curtis and I got ready for work and Matt and Amber got some information about busses in the area. We showed them our school and were really glad that they were impressed.

Sigh, another week has gone by of book reports and reminding kids about putting periods at the end of sentences. Sometimes I feel like it's really not life or death if this child doesn't ever right with periods or capitals or good spacing between words. Then I think of the communication aspect and how English relies so heavily on it's punctuation to be understood. ;) I'm changing the world one comma at a time.