This one is from a long time ago, but I just got it on my computer. I'm standing next to a Ricola box that is holding a cigarette that on the english side says "smoking with Ricola". I could not keep a straight face. 

David saying "I'm never going to get 30 points. Hurry up, just lay something. When's it gonna be my turn again?" 

Blokus? 

John the photographer 

Cranes for dad 

Girls from the adult minstry at church.
 

The guys from the adult ministry at church. 

Christmas Breakfast. Although it may not look like much, it was the best food in the world. 

A white dusting for Christmas Morning. 

Pastor Phillip. 

The north pole of Lotte World 

Where we sang christmas carols. It looks really cool with the multiburst effect. 

Burritos and Nachos for Chrismas Eve dinner. I was too full, so the Nachos actually went to my STEM friends who were setting up for church the next morning. 

Pastor John as Santa. He was asked to dress up in this for his old Hagwan (english academy) and decided to wear it for affect at the service. 

The Christmas story told from the perspective of the Animals in the barn. These kids were absolutely hilarious, especially the chicken and the lamb. They must have either grown up in the US or attended International School their whole lives because their english is way too good. 

For the Christmas Festival, the STEM worship band joined with children from Jubilee to lead us in song. 

Samsung subway station at almost 5pm Christmas Eve. It was the exact opposite Christmas morning. Completely empty. 

Christmas songs on Ice.  

This is the Average Day in my room. Studying or something.

 

This is from a long time ago, but the day was really cold and we didn't have hats, so Torie improvised and used the box she bought to send her brother's secret santa gift in. 

There are some of the most interesting trees here. Because Christmas is a newly celebrated holiday in Korea, most people have not perfected the art of tree decorating. If you look closely, the lights do not go circularly up the tree, but zigzag vertically. Not to mention the puffs of cotton balls. 

This is my class at school. They were practicing "I will follow him" for a school chior contest where every class competes against one another. I sat out for the competition. Also the teacher in the photo isn't our home room teacher. He's the gym teacher, but I know him better than my home room teacher. While they were practicing he was playing the drums because he takes drum lessons every Thursday. I will have a different class when school starts again. 

This is the retreat I'm going on next week. It will be an amazing way to end my stress of writing college entrance essays which are due Jan 3. 

I hope this is large enough to read. It is my contribution to the STEM (Sarang Teen's English Ministry) Newletter. Maybe I will post more of the Newletter later. 

My Merry Christmas Schedule.....

First of all I just want to say that God is an Awesome God! He gave me the most amazing Christmas I could have ever dreamed of. Right now a tear is rolling down my face because I just got off the phone with Erik after not hearing his voice for four months. That in itself would have been enough. Supposedly it's a present for him, but it is also one of the best presents I could give myself. I also called Soup to wake her up on Christmas morning just before Erik and hearing her voice again for the second time in fourth months put the biggest smile on my face.

Christmas really began on Christmas Eve Morning though...

8:00am- Wake up and think "It's Christmas!" but try to fall back asleep
9:30am- After hitting snooze a few times and putting on Minnesota style layers of clothes, run out the door as my mom gives me four bananas and a doughnut, because I'm late to meet the group who was going to go sledding
12:00pm-Decide to go bowling (with Quin, Scott, NZ Steve, sorry I don't remember your name who just came back from three years in Brazil, Ange, and her Canada boyfriend) after already declining both sledding and ice skating due to hundreds of other people already participating in those activities
2:00pm-Eat shrimp mongolian barbeque for lunch, then sit in a bookstore and read some of Charles Dickens' short Christmas stories
5:00pm- take a picture of Seoul's busiest subway day that I have ever seen, then meet Yoo-gyung outside exit six of Gangnam station to go to Grace Chapel
6:00pm-Ater chatting with numerous friends of all ages apologetically probably making Yoo-gyung feel a little awkward because she didn't know anyone, the Christmas Program began.
10:00pm- Eat burritos for Christmas Eve dinner because this year I couldn't have green chili
11:00pm-On the way home from Church stop outside Lotte World where there are Christmas lights and places to take photos and sing christmas carols really loud.
11:30am- Return home to my house with Torie because she was spending the night

CHRISTMAS!!
1:00am- Go to bed after watching part of Charlie's Angel's II (voiced over into Korean) with my host family. Also my family gave me a spoon holder for when I eat lunch at school and a pair of red reindeer antlers on a head band. I felt kind of bad because I didn't get them anything.
7:00am-turn alarm off and go back to bed
7:30am-turn alarm off and go back to bed
7:45am-get up, get dressed, turn on tv to see veggie tales christmas in Korean
9:00am-show up at pastor John's house and help him make breakfast for Torie and me: pancakes, bacon, eggs, pineapple, hot chocolate, whip cream, canadian maple syrup, raspberry jam, and cranberry juice
10:00am-show up late to church, miss the singing, but come right in time for pastor phillip's sermon
12:00pm-Go to coffee bean and tea leaf to enjoy a caramel latte, try to wake up and people watch out the window. Also talk about life with Torie. End up having a text message conversation with Robert after I see him walk into Starbucks.
2:30pm- Go to NHM chrismas party where there is turkey, dill pickles, peanut butter cookies and eggnog. Listen to pastor John's chrismas story
3:30pm-Go to Eugene's christmas party with Stemers, Bible study teachers and pastor phillip. Play board games like blonkus? and Rumi....with the chips and you have to get 30pts to start laying...
7:00pm-Go to Korean Christmas program at my host family's church
11:00pm- Call Soup. Talk for about an hour. At first she thought I was her aunt because I woke her up and she wasn't completely concious
11:50pm- Call Erik. Talk to him for the first time in four months. Just that would have been the best Christmas ever.

DAY AFTER (still Christmas in MN)
9:00am- wake up after 8hrs of sleep and try to write college essays unsuccessfully, so I call Zack and talk to him instead. I hadn't talked to him since my birthday. About the same with Soup.
10:00am- realize that my host parents bought food off the army base for Christmas. There is turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, green beens, and cranberry sauce. I ate. I could not believe how amazing my host family was to buy this. Thank you sooooo much.
11:00am-call my Grandma Dee's house where I talk to my Uncle Darren for the first time in four months, my mom, sister, dad, brother, and grandma

Try calling Steph numerous times throughout the day, but I didn't know her cell number and she must have been at a relative's house or something.

The rest of the day wasn't really Christmas. But my Christmas as a whole was absolutely amazing.

Today I didn't go to school until 1pm because I truely need to finish my essays for college admissions. If you knew me last year, especially if you are Mr. Fogarty or Mrs. Moran, my english teachers, you know that I am a terrible procrastinator at writng essays, but once I actually do it they don't turn out that bad. Anyway, today I was browsing the Macalaster website to find specific aspects about the school that I can use to demonstrate why I would be a good student for them. Their attitude is directed toward promoting multicultural and international perspectives. This is also my goal, the only problem is that I have to figure out how to write about that with out being clique or dreamy. The approach I am thinking about taking is writing about Texas-multiculturalism, Nebraska-student teacher ratio, Minnesota-leadership, and Seoul-international perspective. If you didn't know, in Texas I lived in Arlington, a suburb with a very diverse community. Nebraska was a school named Rokeby consisting of 35 kids and about 5 teachers. Minnesota I just like to talk and lead class discussions or activities. And Seoul is definetly international, but something else really interesting is that it is about 99% homogeneous. The problem is trying to fit all four of these things plus the reasons why I am writing about them into a 500 word essay. It's hurting my brain trying to get rid of the unneeded material. I haven't even been able to write a complete first draft.

Well, today when I did go to school there was a chior contest where each class in grades 1 and 2 (10 and 11) performed a song. I didn't participate , but my class did the sister act version of "I will follow him" another did "Happy day" and many of them were christmas medlies in korean. Some I didn't recognize. My class didn't get first prize I don't think, but we had a pizza party anyway. In some ways I felt really left out, because today even more so than usual people were afraid to talk to me. Maybe because I was so preoccupied by college.

After school I sat in a coffee shop for an hour working on my essays then went to meet my Rotary counselor. We have both been very busy, so I haven't really seen him much in Korea. Today we went out for Chinese food with his son who is a junior at a boarding school in Rhode Island, but home for Winter Vacation. The night was really nice. Chinese food and then more coffee and some really good chocolat chocolat cake. I felt bad, because they wanted me to speak Korean and then they would reply in English, but lately my head is so swarmed with English words that are trying to form themselves into my essay that I could barely think of a Korean sentence. That's what I will be practicing over break.

On the way home I met two people whom I haven't seen since September, Caleb and Heather from my church. I was walking in the subway and someone grabbed the my backpack. I was really confused, but there was Caleb. It was God sent, and only two days before Christmas. Heather and I exchanged numbers and they invited me to Christmas brunch at their house around noon on Sunday.

When I got home, my house was filled with about nine elementary school kids. They were all very shy of me because they were afraid to speak English. But then I took out my double deck of cards and taught them how to play go fish and everything turned out really well. It was Christmas because we were playing cards. Somehow many of my christmas traditions are showing up in untraditional ways even though I didn't plan it.

More after Christmas. The caffine in my system just told me this would be a good time to write.

Sorry it's been such a long time since I've updated you. You're probably even more curious about what is going on in my life since it is almost Christmas. Well to say the least I'm busy. Not only is it almost Christmas, but that means that the application deadline for colleges is quickly approaching. I'm applying early decision II to Macalaster, so the app is due on Jan 3. I have two essays that I need to complete, but are only in their beginning stages. Because of this and because since final exams are over and no one is actually doing anything at school, I stayed home on Tuesday and Wednesday to work on my essays. Please pray for me that I will be able to convey my thoughts and experiences through two well written essays that truely tell who I am, what I have done, and how I feel.
There is so much more to talk about, but it's 11:30pm and I have to be up at 6:30 tomorrow morning for school. I'll try to write very brief updates during the next week and as soon as I send in my applications I'll spill my heart out for you. Since I am going to bed I would like to say sweet dreams. And a Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays to everyone. I pray that you don't get caught up in the whole commercialism aspect of Christmas, but focus on family and love at this time of year. Even on this side of the world I can feel how much I am loved by both my biological family and my good friends at home. Also I have my host families, friends and church family over here.
Today we celebrated one of my really young host cousin's birthday with my host mom's whole immediate family. She has five siblings. This felt like Christmas.

This should be a really interesting picture for all of last years humanities students. It is actually a scanned copy of a page from my art textbook. One day I was sitting in art class and the teacher was talking about this page. Although I only understand some of the words (by the way, the top underlined one is Renaissance) I would have been able to tell her about each one of their artworks. Thank you Mr. Weber and humanities. By the time I get home I'm going to have translated this page. She also had copies of other famous artworks that I knew. It was such a fun class period. I was reminiscing about last year.