THIS JUST IN: Chickens not only birds to lay eggs

Ducks, quails also reproduce oviparously

The other day at school, one of my colleagues said she had accidentally bought some duck eggs. She had bought some expensive eggs, thinking they were organic or something. Having brought them home, she made an omelet. They tasted funny. She then saw a picture of a duck on the carton. Apparently she has some ethical qualms about eating duck eggs, and did not intend to eat any of the three remaining eggs. Seeing my interest, she offered to bring them to school for me. And she did; so I had three duck eggs to try. I had two of them fried with some of the leftover pork from the faculty dinner--they were good. Maybe a slightly stronger "eggy" or "gamey" flavor. Today I went out shopping and got another carton of duck eggs. I used some of them to make cookies, and now there are four left over. I don't know if the duckiness of the eggs made a difference to the cookies--I had to put about a cup of extra flour in to make them bake up properly (give them "structural integrity"), and using dark brown sugar instead of light brown was probably a bigger deal.

When Leslie and I are all grown up and have a house in suburbia with a backyard, I want to be a duck farmer.

Happy New Year!!

Hi everyone! It's the Lunar New Year this weekend, so we have today and tomorrow off from school! Last week was very busy (and I was quite sick); on top of our normal teaching and preparations, we also had to work on our curriculum maps (entering our units onto the special website) before our faculty meeting Friday afternoon. After the meeting, the school took us to dinner at a very nice Korean BBQ restaurant (I had tofu and Daniel took home a bunch of extra meat). On Saturday, we spent several hours watching the Olympics Opening Ceremony at our friend's apartment (they can get American television through slingbox), which was a lot of fun (she made us and her other guests delicious homemade banana muffins, crepes, and coffee cake), went shopping at Costco with another friend, and then went to that friend's place to eat Costco pizza for dinner and watch Amadeus. Yesterday, I met up with my elementary school friend (who's also teaching in Korea this year) at the Namsangol Hanok Village in the center of Seoul. It was very crowded--they had several special activities set up for the New Year, and a lot of children were wearing their beautiful traditional outfits (called hanbok) under their coats. It was fun to see kids playing with traditional toys, writing good-luck letters, and making recorders out of bamboo. We also watched a cool performance (video below) and tried homemade rice wine (called Makgeolli--not my favorite). We later went back to the apartment she's currently staying in, which is near Itaewon, and then I met Daniel in Itaewon at a yummy Indian restaurant for Valentine's Day dinner. Today, I need to start doing some work (grading tests and planning my next units especially). We are traveling to Kyoto, Japan for Spring Break (at the end of March), so we've spent a lot of time on the internet and skype the last couple of days trying to find hotels; we've called at least 20 places for the first night we're there (we're set for the rest of the week) and they're all booked, or else very expensive. We'll keep trying! :) I can't wait to visit Japan! We hope you're all doing well!


Playing with hoops.


They had a "man" and "woman" in traditional clothing.


The N Seoul Tower.


Making Korean recorders.


The garden, looking down from the traditional houses.


In one of the traditional houses.


One of the rooms.


Letters people had written.


I loved his hanbok.


Kite-flying.


The performance--look at their hats!


More performance.




The rice wine.


Yummy red bean-filled pastries.


At the Indian restaurant.

Ice Skating Adventure

Hi everyone! After a stressful past few weeks, we had lots of fun today because of an ice skating field trip (for 4th-10th grades) this afternoon! While chaperoning our homerooms (which mainly consisted of getting them there and back in one piece), Daniel and I also had the chance to skate! We were at the rink for over two hours, and I skated for most of that time. While the students were first being given group lessons, the ice was open on one side of the rink, which was very nice; when they were done with the lessons, it was pretty crowded. I skated alone, with Daniel, and with a few of my students (at one point, I was pulling two girls at once). The only not-so-fun part was when one of the 8th graders cut right in front of me, and when I tried to stop, I fell and bruised my knee. :( Most of the students had a great time; however, a few of them (the 10th grade boys especially) didn't want to give it a try. Here are some pictures from the trip:



My students getting their group lessons.



Empty ice!





A few of my ninth graders.


While fixing my skates.






Two other teachers. :)


I taught my students how to play Apples to Apples today (in the half an hour we had left of school when we got back); they really enjoyed it.

Why teaching can be worth all of the hard work...

A poem one of my sixth graders wrote for me today:

Ms. Nightingale, a wonderful creative writing teacher, also known as a very

Smart, kind, and a helpful teacher, I want to say thank you to her~

Nights pass by, but she is still awake fixing and correcting our work...

Imagine Ms. Nightingale yelling to us-- Really inconceivable... She's not a bad teacher...

Gathering all our homework, teaching us in a patient way, that's Ms. Nightingale^^

Heeding and heeding about our knowledge, to let us become great people in the future.

Thanks again, for sharing your comprehension with us,

I won't be able to forget about you, even though I turn old, as old as

Nonono, the old woman that lives in my street, the one that is 321 years old.

Getting to know Ms. Nightingale more, she's one of my favorite teachers...

Aspire that she won't leave APIS this year... Wish to have her as my creative writing teacher next year too..

Lonely without her; feel active and lively if Ms. Nightingale is near me...

Entertain us more, let's play games more, Ms. Nightingale-- then we'll be the best students... Kidding~!

Home!!

Happy holidays, everyone!! We hope you're all doing well! Daniel and I are sorry that we have been remiss in blogging the last couple of months! I finally have some time to write and add pictures and will therefore attempt to summarize some of the highlights from our lives recently. Since December 19th, we have been home in the United States! We spent the first week and a half with my family--it was wonderful to be home with them--and yesterday, we arrived at Daniel's house and had a lovely second Christmas Eve (including my first lefse-making) with his family. We plan to spend the next week and a half visiting with family and friends and, unfortunately, finishing some grading once we get back to Seoul on the 8th. Here are some pictures with brief explanations from the last month...


This is the resort on Korea's east coast where we spent Thanksgiving (thanks to a discount from the school) with a few friends. It was beautiful!


The ocean!


Daniel on top of Seorak Mountain (near the resort).


A statue of the Buddha at Seorak Mountain National Park.


Shopping with Clara in Insadong (a nice but touristy part of Seoul).


Home!!! Daniel with Diana.


Our gingerbread party!


My gingerbread house.


Our finished products! A fun day with Alison, Claire, Ruhan, Robby, and Danny!


With Diana in front of our tree.


Our tree.


Lefse-making at Daniel's house!!!


I'm about to flip the lefse, while Sarah is rolling out a new one.


Daniel and Sarah setting up the nativity.


Happy New Year!!

Love,
Leslie

The Silence of the Aitches

Today in Social Studies, we took a quiz on the geography of South Asia. One of the most diabolically fun things about my job is that I get to make my pupils learn whatever geographical locations and features I think are important. Few moments here in Korea have given me greater pleasure than the time I leaned back in my chair, steepled my fingers, and with a faraway gleam in my eye, said to myself..."Yeessss...very good...they will be required to learn the locations of the Indus and Ganges rivers. The Brahmaputra will be extra credit. Mwahahahahahaha. Mwahahahahahaha! MWA-HA-HA-HA-HAH!"

But I digress.

South Asia includes such countries as Bhutan, and such national capitals as New Delhi, Kathmandu, Thimphu, Dhaka, and such landforms the Brahmaputra river, etc. Of course, all these silent aitches present a challenge to memorization. So correcting the quizzes, I've seen a lot of Dehli, Thimpu, Dakha, etc. The most entertaining is when they throw a silent aitch into a country name that has none. I have seen both "Bhurma" and "Burmha" given as names for Burma (the country immediately to the east of India whose oppressive military government would rather that people called it Myanmar).

A Very Special Episode of "Korean Eighth Graders Write the Darndest Things!"

Assignment: write a critique of the story "The Treasure of Lemon Brown" from the perspective of the article "Homeless in America."  (Basically: is the story's portrayal of Lemon Brown, a homeless character, realistic?)

"In the last part, Lemon Brown said that he'll be moving to East St. Louis so he could be safe from the thugs who are trying to hurt him.  It's unknown how he'll move and why moving to East St. Louis rather than any other places.  Homeless people wouldn't have money for expensive transportation unless they manage to hide inside an empty backpack, hitchhike, or hijack a vehicle."

"He picks [food] out of the trash sometimes, but he doesn't seem weak from hunger.  Either he gets a lot of good food from the trash or it's just not real."

"I wonder how he [Lemon Brown] ate, how he washed, and how he slept because in the story it did not tell about Lemon Brown's supplies like toothbrush, sleeping bag."

"I researched in google and it says that the most reason homeless people doesn't leave their place is that other people might steal their seats."