Day 27

Today was a great day. We worked most of the day on speeches, with idioms and reading and writing interspersed. It went really well. The kids and I are on the “same team” now, and we have a good relationship. They worked really hard on their speeches. They are supposed to be 2 minutes long, but I’m realizing that’s really hard for some non-English speakers, so after telling them time and again “Add four more sentences!” I think I’m just going to be happy with 90 second speeches.

After lunch, we had a game that raised tensions with the team members. We still love each other, don’t worry. Basically, we had to travel to the five different classrooms for 10 minutes apiece as we tried to cram all kinds of trivia about Korea. And then we had to play a game show and answer questions after cramming in our five different classrooms. Most stressful thing yet. And our whole team winning and getting a pizza party kind of came down to this last game. And today our team started in forth place. No pressure, Joshua, but if you want to escape kimchi tonight, you need to do well.

Well, I won. It was awesome. And the grace of God. I remembered things that I didn’t even think I remembered. For instance, one of the questions was how many calories are in bibimbap? The answer is 730 kcal. That was a random number that popped into my head – and I was right. Maybe now I’m starting to realize how I got through college with all A’s – good cramming skills.

We won, but we lost overall first place by two points. Sad day. And I was told if I taught my kids better, I would have received more points. Sometimes, I don’t think people exactly know how they say things, but it just reminds me to be careful how I phrase things. We like to be results-oriented in the United States (and apparently Korea), but results do not define people, nor to they give or take away worth.

Had a fun night at the rally – it was crazy hair night. We spent like 20 minutes just spraying hairspray and mouse. Hard to breathe at times with all of that. Then we played a few games – pumping the tunes are my thing. Rocking it like it’s 2010.

Watched “What Happens In Vegas” with the team tonight, and then had a good, good talk with the team until like 2 am. So pumped for this weekend.