Monthly Photo Recap: August 2013.

I really enjoyed putting together July in photos last month, so I think this is definitely going to be a monthly deal. There's just something fun about sorting through my photos, only choosing a handful (I take a lot of pictures...), and then putting them up with explanations/captions. I already have a lot planned for the months of September and October -- just thinking about sorting through those photos for their respective future entries is exciting. (I am, of course, really looking forward to the actual things the photos will be of -- weekend trip to Muuido, Chuseok trip to Ulleungdo, as well as several visitors! Hi, Mom! And Dinah and Marley!)

So, here's August, in photos. And! One video. :)

August kicked off with my cousin's birthday. Tony was in this part of the world for six weeks, two and a half of which were spent in Japan. His bday fell on the day he was headed to Japan, so the night before, we all did dinner at the delicious apple samgyeopsal spot in the neighborhood and got him a Paris Baguette cake! 

Fact: Some of the best Mexican food is probably made in my apartment. 

Not the best quality (something seems to get lost between Instagram and uploading to Blogger?), but still a great video showing the terrible listening tracks for my iBT TOEFL class. My students can't even handle them, usually because of terrible "accents" and "natural speech," so we spend a lot of time in listening class just laughing. This was during an actual important exam, and we all just cracked up.

It seems like June, July, and August = birthdays for everyone in Korea, so here's another bowling birthday party. This was the night that it dawned on me that I really hate bowling. Like, a lot. 

As I mentioned in last month's photo recap, Corey and I upgraded our kitchen by like 200% by picking up a crockpot AND a convection oven from Costco. I was able to successfully make a delicious apple tart! Can't wait for the weather to cool down so I feel like cooking and baking more. 

"Sailer" Moon, given to me because we "look the same!" 

My cute new fan, which is oh-so necessary to survive the summer heat -- especially my walks to work. Except this Summer Panda character isn't very comforting. "Tomorrow will be like today" isn't what I want to hear when I'm dripping sweat in 1000% humidity. I think Summer Panda might be a bit of a condescending ass.

This is what happens when you show little girls a funny photo app on your phone and let them play. I'm actually pretty impressed. And also a little alarmed at how much this kind of resembles Corey... (Who they've never seen a picture of.)

End of term notes from one of my elementary classes (the same group responsible for the above photo). Sweet girls. I'm bummed I don't have any of them in my classes for the fall term.

Korea celebrated its independence day! I always like it when they put the flags up along the streets. It just looks cool.

When I came back from my vacation in the States, I was bummed to see that I wasn't teaching my school's literature class during the summer term. But! I have it back again! I was pretty excited to get the books for the fall term. I really missed teaching lit! 

Sooo many evenings were spend outside of (one of) our neighborhood's 7/11. There aren't any open container laws in Korea, so convenience stores often have folding tables and plastic chairs set up on the sidewalk outside. It's common to see groups just hanging out at these tables, drinking beer and soju. Since the heat during the day was awful, we took advantage of spending time outside late at night. 

I don't understand a lot of things that happen in Korea. Like this group of yodeling Korean children performing in one of the nearby subway stations. They looked pretty adorable though.

Apparently, some of the packages of my markers for class proclaim that the marker won't dry out for 50 days if left uncapped? One of my students decided that she was going to dry out a marker during class (which is three hours). Imagine a tiny little girl, paying attention to class and doing all her work, but simultaneously blowing on a marker that she's holding in front of her face. Needless to say, she didn't succeed, but she did put in serious effort. At first I thought she was just being silly, but as soon as I saw how determined she was, I let her carry on. The rule being that she still needed to get her classwork done, of course. This was how she handed the marker back to me at the end of class. 

Left on my desk after the first day of class with a new group. This isn't actually from Terry, but from a girl who I'm absolutely certain has a major crush on him. They're insane. Clearly, we're off to an awesome start. -_- It's going to be an... interesting term with that bunch.

That victorious moment when you find Dr Pepper in a random convenience store and you get the very last one.

The subway stations amaze me sometimes -- they're all surprisingly pretty. This is part of the ceiling in Bupyeong Station and even though I've walked through that part of the station a billion times, I'd never noticed this before.

Costco shopping success! Got the essentials: turkey, ham, salami, cheeses, pesto, sour cream, and bagels! When we saw that the bagels were Einstein Bros bagels, we went crazy. Corey and I bought 24. No lie. (Most went into the freezer to save for later, though.) I'm going to be in sandwich heaven for the next week. And bagel heaven for a few weeks.

That's all for August! Lots of posts coming soon... I have Wednesdays off this term, so I'm going to use my free time to marathon tv shows actually be productive, and blogging is on the to-do list.