Winter Open House

Today is the culmination of 3 months of practice, tears, yelling, bribes and frustration.  Today my Kindergarten students will perform their Winter Open House.  I'm always amazed when I step back and actually look at what all my students know.  Our Open House consists of minute-long self introductions by my students, example of class time work led by the students, a Phonics section, a Science lesson, a story with comprehension questions, a 10 minute play and 2 songs.  The entire production is about 45 minutes long.  My students are so smart, and I think we're as ready as we'll ever be.  My biggest worry is actually that I'm gonna trip on my heels and fall off the stage on my face (this wasn't a concern to me until I dreamt of such a tragedy last night).  This is my last big thing at work before I leave, which is really strange to think about.  It's hard to believe I'll be home in 3 and a half weeks...wow!!!

I hope you all are enjoying the holiday season.  Don't let the stress mask the reason for this incredible season!

It's ALL About Him,

KendallCooke

Korea's Idea of American Thanksgiving

We had an International Food Festival today at school, and I ate entirely too much food.  I don't even wanna imagine the number of calories I consumed.  Let me back up and explain exactly what our 'International Food Festival' was.

So Koreans pretty much think that American Thanksgiving is a day when Americans get together and indulge in gluttony.  I guess they aren't that far off.  So to celebrate Thanksgiving, or rather to celebrate the fact that Americans eat a ton of food on Thanksgiving, we had a little party today.  Each classroom was assigned one country from around the world.  There was Korea, Japan, China, America, Italy, Mexico, and India.  My classroom was assigned China.  So each student from my class brought in Chinese food.  When I say they brought Chinese food, I don't mean a plate of egg rolls and sweet and sour chicken.  I mean each student brought in an entire meal of Chinese food.  And each student from all the other classes brought in an entire meal of their country's food.  So during lunch today we had 6 fold out tables covered without any space with food from all these countries.  It was delicious!  I wish my stomach was bigger so that I could have eaten more.  On top of the delicious food, I got to eat in my classroom with my students, which was really fun.  I almost never eat with them, and we don't get a whole lot of non-teaching time to hangout, so it was nice to just relax and joke with them for a bit.  It was a pretty good day in Korea!

I'm getting ready to head to bed and when I wake up it will be Thanksgiving.  Only it won't REALLY be Thanksgiving.  Because instead of wrestling with my siblings for the remote control and listening to Mother Hen Kash yell at all of us to get in the kitchen and help her, I will be going to work and teaching English for 7 hours.  And instead of turkey, mashed potatoes, rolls, pie, etc., I'll probably be eating kimchi and rice.  Ahhh....such is life!

I hope you all enjoy the holiday immensely and are super thankful for all the blessings that God has given us!

It's ALL About Him,

KendallCooke

Rich's Bakery!!!!

I walk by this little bakery everyday on my way to and from the gym.  And as can imagined, it always reminds me of my father, as his name is Rich.

Can't wait to get home and hang out with that man, complaining about Illini sports, eating spoonfuls of corn syrup and talking about soccer.  (And mom, don't take this as a slight because there's no "Mary's" on my way to the gym.  I'm counting down the days until I get to do fun stuff like shopping, gossiping, and watching movies with you too.)

I hope you all have an amazing Thanksgiving week!!!  Eat lots of turkey, potatoes, rolls, pie and all those other goodies for me!  Love you all!


It's ALL About Him,

KendallCooke

Pepero!!!

Here's that Pepero picture I promised.  I've eaten all the chocolate covered Pepero that I received so I had to snap a picture of the strawberry dipped Pepero instead.  You still get the idea.

Well it's been forever..

It's been a busy, tough, frustrating. long last 2 months.  So I'm moving on from there.

As you all already know, yesterday was 11/11/11.  In Korea every year on 11/11, they celebrate 'Pepero Day.'  On 'Pepero Day', Koreans give pepero to all their loved ones, including family, friends, teachers, etc.  Pepero are skinny breadstick/cookie things that have one end dipped in chocolate (I'll have to post a picture on here when I find my camera).  They actually are quite good.  It was a fun day at school.  I got a bunch of pepero from my students, and then we ate A TON in class.  All my students were bouncing off the walls.  It was a good and fun day!!!

I'll be home in 6 weeks, and I can't believe it.  I hope all is going well for you back home in the States.

It's ALL About Him,

KendallCooke

Frantic.

I am currently sitting at Starbucks frantically flipping through pages and pages of law school information and frantically clicking through the 12 tabs I have on my browser trying to make some decision about where to apply to law school.  And I realize that I am just that...frantic.  Let me place you in my shoes just for a minute.

Close your eyes and imagine that you are currently living about 6,000 miles from home.  While you are there, someone tells you that you need to try to decide where exactly you are going to live for at least the next 3-4 years if not the next 5-10 years when you return home.  Then they tell you that you can only choose 10-12 cities in the entire United States...and one of those cities is where you must spend the next couple years of your life.  Do you feel the panic begin to set in?  Increased heart rate...shortened breath...sweaty palms.  This is where I find myself.

As thrilling and exciting as applying to law school and picturing my future can be at times, it is equally nerve racking and stressful.  I've been pouring over the top 100 law schools for at least 6 weeks...comparing strength of programs and national mobility and tuition and median scholarship grants and cities and teacher:student ratio and application fees and first time bar passage percentages and 9 month after graduation employment rates and likelihood of acceptance.  And I still sit here with a list of 50+ schools...which is unfortunate since I don't have $4000 just lying around to put towards application fees for all of these schools.  While schools have officially started accepting applications, I don't even have a final list of schools that I'm going to apply to.  So yeah...that's where I'm at right now.

I hope you all enjoyed the Fall Festival and the parade.  Wish I could have been there this weekend for that.  I pray that this Sunday finds you well.

It's ALL About Him,

KendallCooke

Seoul Forest...yeah right

Since coming back from Cambodia 2 weeks ago, I wasn't allowing myself to post any new blogs because I kept intending to write about all I did and saw in Cambodia.  But after just jotting a rough outline of all we did and saw, I've decided it would be entirely too long and nearly impossible to write about.  I'll have to tell you all in person when I get back to the States and then you can actually see the pictures of the places that I'm talking about.  So I'm just gonna pick up from today. 

Today, August 15th, was Korea's Independence Day so that meant no work...HOORAY!!!  I, along with a couple friends, decided we should do something outside if the weather was 'nice' (by nice we really meant not raining).  So today we all got up bright and early to head over to Seoul Forest for a couple hours.  We rarely ever see nature in the part of the city that we live in so we were excited to spend some time in a forest, which is also said to be Seoul's biggest national park.  But when we got there it was totally depressing.  It wasn't anything like a forest.  Enormous disappointment!  And no matter where you walked around in the premises, you could see skyscrapers and freeways.  We did, however, have a little fun while there.  We decided to rent bicycles, and Nate and I cruised around on a pink tandem bike for the better part of an hour. 

After that, we went to lunch in Itaewon (the foreigner's district) at this delicious authentic Italian restaurant.  I ate lasagna with handmade noodles, and it was so delicious.  One of the best things I have eaten since I've come to Seoul.  Then Monica and Nate got the most incredible deserts. (Let me qualify this statement.  Koreans don't cook with real butter or sugar or other basic baking necessities, so the majority of the baked goods here are terrible.  We haven't had a real piece of cake in months and months.) 

All in all, it turned out to be a pretty good day.  And now I'm gonna finish this day and get to bed.  As of late, I haven't been able to sleep more than 3 or 4 hours a night so I'm exhausted right now. 

Love you all and miss you much!  18 weeks until I will be home for Christmas.

It's ALL About Him, 

KendallCooke