It snowed today!!!
I was extremely surprised to look out my window today at work and see it snowing!! I mean, I knew it was cold but I didn't realize it was that cold...apparently it was like 25 degrees today which made me come to the realization that it's gonna be a longggg winter of walking and public transportation :( But anyways, the snow was absolutely BEAUTIFUL!! It snowed for three hours straight but didn't stick...regardless, the students were all excited that we had some pretty scenery outside the window besides smog and skyscrapers...
So i guess i don't have much to say other than that....oh wait yes i do....I'm going to GUAM for my vacation in january!!!!!! I'm sooooo excited!!!! My Grandpa was stationed there in the early 50s so that will be cool to see where he was. And relaxing on an island in the middle of the South Pacific will be pretty sweet...oh and im pumped to go snorkeling and scuba diving etc. (ive never done either before) so yea, can't wait!
Ok that's all I've got to say for today
Much love as always,
Maureen
Ahhhhhh sorry it took me such a long time to post another blog!!! Butttt I'm ready to fill you all in so here goes :)
Work has been work...some days are good and other days not so good, but definitely a lot more good days then bad ones :) Ok I think I told you this before but on Halloween I let all the kids come trick or treat in my office....but now they think that if they say "Trick or Treat" whenever they see me that I will give them candy. So I hear "Trick or Treat" about a million times a day now...so I guess it's gonna be October 31st all year wooooo
It was fun watching the election in Korea...I actually was done teaching at 11am that day so I got to watch the whole thing live on abcnews.com so I felt like I was in back in the US. Although I really missed fabulous D.C. watching all the footage :( My students were actually really interested, so we spoke about it a lot during the week leading up to the election and then on election day I had students stopping in every passing time asking who was ahead in the polls. Since they were so excited about it I figured to make the rest of my week's lessons about the election and the meaning behind it etc. I was wayyyy pumped about this cause I miss my Social Studies classes (although every class we ALWAYS do something social studies related because I just cant not teach about history haha) But anyways, we watched part of both McCain and Obamas speeches and I showed them MLK "I have a dream speech." I know this wont surprise any of you but I just love my man MLK so much...wow that sounded beyond pathetic and dorky but you know me :)
Well, after I did the lesson, one of the English teachers walked up to me and asked if I could always do stuff like that so yayyyyyyy...
Ok enough about my teaching....
I love all the pretty fall colors...i don't want it to be winter yet....
As far as friends and weekends goes I've been having a lot of fun. Took a boat ride down the Han River on Saturday. It was fun except we each randomly had several Koreans become like obsessed with us and after 45 min of awkwardly talking we got extremely uncomfortable. They were asking for our phone numbers, trying to hold our hands, following us around, etc. I mean we're used to this cause stuff like this happens a lot in Korea...excpet this time we were trapped on a 2 hr boat ride. I feel like now I know how animals in the zoo must feel when children pound on the glass and wont stop because this was definitely the feeling during the boat ride...But anyways, this one little girl sarah was sooo cute and I gave her one of my bracelets (which probably wasn't a good idea because she started trying to give me her jewelry and then got really upset when I wouldn't take it...very uncomfortable)
Here is are a few pics of me and my new chingu (friend in Korean) Sarah...
I live like two blocks from the Han River so that is my new running path whenever I am able to force myself to go. I think im playing tennis with one of my friends this week so that will be extremely relaxing to get back to hitting...
Seoul has lots of random weird things such as this foam mushroom. It was in the middle of nowhere and there was absolutely no reason for it...typical
hmmm what else??? there is so much because I haven't written in a while so I'm sorry I will change that. Oh, I am OBSESSED with this amazing artist named Kina Grannis...check her out on YouTube cause she is fantasticccccccc!!!!!
Hope everyone is doing well....thanksgiving is so soon, exciting!!!!
Check out Meghan's beautiful baby girl, Myla!!!!!!! Can't wait to meet her...so precious!!!
Thanks for all the phone calls, emails, etc.
much love,
Reen
Helloooooooooo!!!!
Ok so yay it's Halloween on Friday woooooooo. And thank you to Mom & Dad and Grandma & Papa for the fun Halloween cards!!! My co-workers loved looking at the Halloween designs, the idea is so foreign to them.
Speaking of Halloween...I think I've spent like a million dollars on candy for my students this week. I'm giving out candy as prizes in class and then I told all of them they can trick or treat in my office and I will give them candy on Friday....buttttt I have about 675 students so I had to buy A LOT of candy tonight....they like don't have bulk candy here so it was really pricey but I can't bail on my cute students....
Oh, I updated my video blog. You can either watch the video on the right of this page or you can copy and paste the link below into your browser. But it will probably be easier for you if you just watch it on the video bar on this page (it's the top video)...here's the link in case you need it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YONET7bvVEY
And here is a pic of part of my Halloween costume...I'm totally gonna rock the polar bear and Katie's gonna be an elephant woooo....
Ok I'm really tired and have so much to type and many pictures to post but I will have to wait until tomorrow since I'm literally falling asleep at my computer....
xoxoxoxoxox
Happy Halloween
- Reenie
Heyyyyy!!!
Ok so I'm really excited cause I'm sure you all noticed how weirdly arranged/formatted my blog was. So tonight I had a bunch of free time and figured it all out....wooooo!!!
Here's the deal...When I make video blogs now you can just click on the videos on the right of my page. As you can see, it shows my YouTube channel so you can watch videos without having to leave my blog...cool right???
And I promise you I will organize all my pictures and videos better now :)
The videos I uploaded tonight were not recorded in Korea obviously, but they are some old videos I found on my computer and decided to upload cause I was bored...so yea, I hope you enjoy them. One of them is when I visited wonderful Danny in Florida, one is of him singing in the music school at Catholic University, and one is of my 10th grade students from last year dancing in my classroom in D.C. Wow, it looks like I'm obsessed with Dan with all these videos I'm adding but he makes me laugh and I'm sure he will make you all laugh too...
Nothing too exciting going on here...this week I decided to fuse my Social Studies teaching into my classroom so I gave an English/Geography/map lesson thingy. I thought it was gonna bomb because I prepared it Monday morning right before class but they actually liked it a lot. And they thought the "Fifty Nifty United States" song I showed them was hilarious...or I think they were just laughing at me cause I was dancing and being all spastic to entertain them during the song. Oh, and it was really funny because I had them label a map of Korea and they were LIVID to see the map said Sea of Japan (which is right) and not Sea of Korea...it was hysterical cause in their accents they were like "Noooooooo Ms. Costello it is KOREA...SEA OF KOREA!!! NO SEA JAPAN...NO SEA JAPAN".So I had to explain that they map is actually right but I understand their issue...soooo I added another map with East Sea under Sea of Japan cause both of those names are used on the world map. Although, they still had a problem with this so I said they could cross out Sea of Japan and write SEA OF KOREA in big letters. Seriously, after hearing this they were extremely relieved and I wanted to laugh so bad...Koreans sometimes get very upset about certain things associated with their country because so much as been taken from them over the years. Anyways, the point of my story is that it was really cute to see them so committed to making sure the map was "right"...
Ummmm besides that I had a really fun weekend...nothing too different, just going out for people's bdays etc. but it was a ton of fun but I'm completely drained now. Although, I did go for a run in Olympic Park yesterday which was reallllllly pretty...however, I'm sure I breathed in massive amounts of pollution cause of all the smog...mmmm delicious. But yea, I wanna work out more so I will be going a lot more...or at least thats the plan, we'll see if I actually stick to it cause Maureen and working out without being forced to at tennis practice doesn't always work at times. Hopefully I will break this pattern though??? Not playing tennis on a daily basis now is really getting to me and now I realize how much I miss hitting ever day and how it kept me in good shape...ahhhh I NEED to find someone to hit with ASAP!!!
Going to Everland (the amusment park like Six Flags) again this weekend with some friends...it's decorated like Halloween which is AMAZING cause well yea, Halloween makes me happy and makes me think about home (well, mainly fun college Halloween times...B spears anyone???)
Ok...here are a few pics...wow this was a long post, sorry if it was boring :(
Miss you, love you, write me por favor!!!!
xoxoxoxo Reen
Biking through Olympic Park. It's only a ten minute walk from my house which is AMAZING to have such a great area so close by!!! it's super relaxing. 
Trying to lock my door with the key tied to my shoe... 
clearly it was a disaster and I fell as usual...look at my legs, I swear I have no idea how I haven't broken more bones the way my body bends so bizarrely when I fall...although I guess I'm not that lucky since I did break my back...idiot 
Roller blading competition in Olympic Park...highly amusing. The Koreans get extremely into their hobbies here... 
Probably the funniest kid I've met in Korea 
Typical hour long subway ride...at least we had seats this time since usually its too packed to sit down for the whole hour + 
Mom and Grandma...that's Richie. 
Some random Koreans ... 
Olympic Park 
There was a wedding...the bride was really pretty except that she had HUGE WHITE PLATFORMS on...ummmmm ok???? 
It snowed today!!!
Olympic Park 
Sub Zero Ice Bar. Very similar to the one we went to in Lubeck except this time there were no enormous ice sculpture and Johnny wasn't there to make fun of me for not being able to make it down the ice slide ...
Olympic Park ...my house is behind the building on the very right...it's nice to live so close to the park cause I get sick of polluted Seoul streets sometimes. 
The 63 building which is actually the tallest building in Seoul. It kind of awkwardly stand by itself and also says "love your life" on the side....slightly confusing
Swan paddle boat rides on the Han River
Halloween!!!!!!!!!!
Biking through Olympic Park. It's only a ten minute walk from my house which is AMAZING to have such a great area so close by!!! it's super relaxing.
Trying to lock my door with the key tied to my shoe...
clearly it was a disaster and I fell as usual...look at my legs, I swear I have no idea how I haven't broken more bones the way my body bends so bizarrely when I fall...although I guess I'm not that lucky since I did break my back...idiot 
Roller blading competition in Olympic Park...highly amusing. The Koreans get extremely into their hobbies here...
Probably the funniest kid I've met in Korea
Typical hour long subway ride...at least we had seats this time since usually its too packed to sit down for the whole hour +
Mom and Grandma...that's Richie. 
Some random Koreans ...
Olympic Park
There was a wedding...the bride was really pretty except that she had HUGE WHITE PLATFORMS on...ummmmm ok????
Amazing Korean street food: The red noodles are rice noodles in spicy chili pepper sauce...soo good!! The long fried stuff on the left is fried squid. The fried balls at the bottom right are hard boiled eggs fried. And when you order street food they give you fish broth to drink. I've had a sip or two...definitely not my thing!!!!
After midterm week my school took a field trip to Everland (Korea's version of Six Flags). These are some of the teachers at my school. The principal is the man next to me and the women in the front row are a few of the English teachers. 
(Johnny this pic is for you) - The super cool shower at the Ritz
Ashley's birthdayyyyyyyyyy
Katie's dad came and took us out for some awesome food and drinks. He is the one in the blue shirt in the back...sooo young looking that he blends in with our friends haha oh and we def set up a self-timer on top of a glass for this shot...Katie is the master of the self-timer
South Korea vs. United Arab Emirates World Cup Qualifier at World Cup Stadium
The streets of Seoul ...
"Destroy the flag important your attitude"???? Korean shirts always have awkward English phrases that don't make sense
