My apartment and Korean Birthdays

I finally put up pictures of my apartment, so you can see them on my flckr account... it's very small, but I've become used to it and actually kinda really like it... Besides the plain white wash insane asylum walls, it isn't too bad :)

I also had my first birthday party in my kindergarten class which I was very excited about because I heard that they were pretty intense, and it was! It was Sally's birthday Wednesday, and so her mom brought in a huge cake, cookies, a whole box of tangerines or clementines or whatever they were, juice, and suckers. I got her a little gift thinking it would be so fun for her to get a present from her teacher, but all the other students brought a present and they were way cooler than mine... but hey, I guess it's the thought that counts (probably not though at 7 years old...) Another thing, they celebrate birthdays, but they don't actually become a year older... as good old wikipedia explains it... "Newborns start at one year old, and each passing of a Lunar New Year rather than the birthday, adds one year to the person's age. In other words, the first year of life is counted as one instead of zero, so that a person is two years old in their second year, three years old in their third, and so on" So my class is 7 but they're really like 5 or 6? A little confusing I think!
Regardless of age, we had a lot of fun with the birthday party!

On the next work related topic... I had my first breakdown at the school, luckily not in front of the kids. My first grade has just been really overwhelming and since the supervisor left (who sucked) I've been getting a ton of new stuff, which in the long run will be way easier and way better to teach but when it was all piled on in one day I just started crying in front of my new supervisor. Later, the head supervisor wanted to talk to me because she knew I had cried, so then of course I cried again... shocking, but they were really nice and comforting and actually the other two new teachers had already cried before me so at least I didn't feel as pathetic!

Anyways, off to Sokcho tomorrow which is on the East side of Korea for Seoraksan National Park for the three day weekend.

Happy October tomorrow everyone!

Love, Meghan