my clock with the funny tick finally pooped out on me
Mood:  accident prone
the clock in my room, it looks like a lifesaver. mabye a butterscotch life saver, but i'm sure it wasn't meant to look like a life saver. it had a different tick. at the top it would swing 5 seconds in one swipe, then at the 6 it would take 10 seconds for 5 ticks. last night at 7:45, it finally crapped out on me. i think that's about the time i went to bed too. i started reading at 7 and didn't last too long. when i woke up this morining i thougth, he cuz it's festival we must not have to wake up until 8! so i went back to sleep. but actually, it was only 7 when i woke up, and i ended up sleeping in too much, i was really late and having to rush through a shower, cram breakfast in and still get jay-un to his midd. school on time. ohhh soooory! we were really only 5 minutes late. so it wasnt a big deal. :) but i just now replaced the batteries in my clock. the funny tick is still there, but a little less now. i feel like i've stolen some of it's character. maybe i should have left it at 7:45. i kind of feel bad now. hmmm

anyways, today was the festival. it was great. yesterday all of donggang middleschool spent preparing. we were told a lot of people were going to be there because they sent out like amillion fliers. ( i was sorely dissapointed that only parents showed up.) it was a laid back day, like yesterday. everyone made scarecrows that looked kind of funny and out of place all over the middleschool. and the students wrote poems taht i couldnt understand and laminated them and hung them by string from their scare crow. i put mine or ri's. they carved pumpkins too. i was helping seojong gut her pumpkin and we were just taking hand fulls out and dumpig it on the desks and all of a sudden these worms started JUMPING out of the goo all over the place. there was millions of them. of course we started screaming and running around until one of the boys finished cleaning the pumpkin :) that was fun, in a sort of disgusting way.

2 days ago i got my ears pierced! i'm so happy! i love it! it's so cute! they're all lime green stones, 3 on the bottom of my left year, and 3 on the bottom of my right with one at the top. it's so cute. i had to hide it from the teachers yesterday, but today since it was the festival, they didnt care. everyone, *gasp* ohhhh yepo yepo (beautiful) appoe?? (did it hurt?) nahhhh well it burned after she did the last one on my left ear, i think she did it wrong cuz she had to adjust the needle half way through, and it throbbed a little. but the others are fine. i hope they dont get infected. that would bite. mom says she's still trying to discourage tracy from piercing her tounge.

should tracy pierce her tounge?

yes

or no?

before the festival started at 9:30, i checked my email even though i PROMISED myself i would cut down on all the writing home. but i never do. I got an email from cayla, and said scott grant was in a pretty messy car accident. the details gave me shivers. someone just shouldn't have been able to live though something that did THAT MUCH damage to his vehical. so amazing. glad he's doing ok though! so scary! I was still trying to find time to write a lengthy messege to her other really sweet emial.

For the first of the festival the groups 1)mexico 2)usa 3)belgium 4)korea all did our skits thing. mexico did their traditional dance with the fancy dress, and tap dance type routine. then us did a swing type thing to elvis's hound dog. belgium i think did the best, with their head sholders knees and toes, in french, and then the smurf dance. that was hilarious! smurfs are cool. korea did samuloni. that's fun to watch cuz the people get sooo into it! they swing their heads and sway to the rythem it's so fascinating. no one was there at all for that performance. it was sad. i guess the invite wasnt until the night performances. o well. we got to spray paint our mural we drew yesterday. us did the statue of liberty. it came out looking somewhat like her, with a flag in the back ground, and some fireworks, it was ok, wasnt' a big deal. the exchange students parents were there. that was it for guests. all the students had made paper air planes yesterday and wrote a wish on them for today we went to the top of the hill over the soccer sand pit and attempted to fly them off. like sending your wish out to sea or something. but the wind was blowing so they all came back on us. that's gotta be sayign something about what's gonna happen to their wishes. :?

i finally sent out my package home, it was 17,000 won, thats about 15$ and it was not too heavy a package. but it was ok, i think my fami might pitch in for it. rotary paid us again, so im not as desperate for cash as i was after they made us fork out 70% of our last stipend for the visa!

that was sort of random, i guess back to the festival news. it was so fun, it felt like autumn, as if it was suppose to be halloween. and all the scarecrows and pumpkins with candles in them, felt like the us. korea doesnt celebrate halloween really. i might get some candy and hadn it out to all the thrid graders for the saturday before halloween. that would be kind of american. the air all around today reminded me of last halloween at the haunted forest. that was really fun, hanging out with all my friends, freezing cold, and it smelled like camp fire, with is what donggang smelled like for who knows what reason. maybe all the candles in the pumpkins did it, but anyways, it was like...woah, i sort of miss that. i wonder if they are going to do that this year. prolly not, someone told me that place went out of business? bummer.

each group had to make a type of food native to that country. mexico did tacos but they were really messed up tacos. they were in a rice type soft shell wtih lettuce tomatoes and TUNA haha dany was so dissapointed. belgium made crepes, and us made hotdogs! not really made, just heated up with mustard and ketchup. it was a big hit, and really really easy.

korea of course did making kimchi. the camera men (we have another group of camera men, but i like them, and i think i'm getting better with them) all wanted to film me trying some of the kimchi. so one of the students fed me kimchi, (their big of hand feeding otehr students its sooo cute!) and they wanted to see my reaction. so my eyes filled up with tears, and my face started burning while i tried not to breathe fire as i attempted a smile and a half hearted "oh its wonderful". then i ran out, to find a water cooler, screw finding a cup! eeeeooooowwww i filled up on sweet crepes after that. someong i know i can manage. yea-lim interviewded us, since none of these camera men know very good english. actully its 2 camera men and one camera woman i recongnize as one of the first camera people who followed us around. they must be doing a series. yea-lim knows how much we hate interviews, me less than rose, but im still nto good at them. but it was short and non painful.

there wasnt much to do after that until the night time program started. i felt lost, like ok now where do i go. everyone seemed to have somthing to do, or made themselves of some use. i was just in a world of my own...ummmmmm me? hmmmm *floats around aimlessly * tar-ae taught me and dany some dances for my name by boa. its fun, like a sexy dance. haha i love it. dany said all her and her friends use to dance all the time in school. i should brign that back to the us. at least i know tracy would dance with me. for the night time show, they just randomly put the exchange studnts down for things we didnt evenknow we were doing. like the kaegari song. (the frog song) i didn't go up and do it, just julian and rose. and dany did her mexican traditional dance with the fancy dress. heesung sang and tae-ri (that means kiwi in korean what a sweet name.) and her group did some dances. i wish i had the nerve to do that sort of thing in front of an audience. but hell no. i'll get better while i'm here i'm sure. butn ot yet. bong was there. he's shaved his head, it looks different. i almost didn't recognize him! yea-min and ye-il did a dance to a famous pop song. that was hot. really, they are good dancers. me and tracy could do something like that if we got our acts together. then yea-min a a few of his friends played guitar for a few songs. that was great. THEN and this was the best part. julian had to do a "fashion show" where he dressed up as a girl. he found 3 other guys to do ti with him. chongo, fransisco (his spanish name, i ALWAYS forget his korean name, im bad) and ye-il. OMG OMG OMG OMG IT WAS SOO ADORABLE. they had some of the girls shrits on and skirts and wigs and huge stuffed boobs! i think chongo looked the best as a girl, he has nice legs. :) fransisco and chonge shaved their legs too, im like why!??! mula! julian had my pink sweatshirt on, very sexy. julian was probably the homliest girl though, sorry julian! they got onstage and EVERYONE went crazy. they did their skit thing and just messed around, then they started throwing articles of clothing into the audience. ''ohh there goes my sweatshirt!!!waiiiit....shit. i gotta get tha back! ''but someoen retured it after the show. i almost lost my voice screaming so much. dany did, hope that is back by tomorrow. haha

that was really all of the exciting parts about today. i'l try and get some pictures of the show from other people. my cam is battery dead and i havent hd the time to replace tehm. so i missed out on an oppertunity of a life time to get pics of the performances.the art teacher prolly ahs them though. i'll check the schools web page ina few days.

umm bean is doing good. rose is over her bronchitis for the most part. YAY!! finally right?! wow that was insane there, i thought she might have to go home. then what would i do!? i'd be lost, really!!! ji-eun is doing good. still no word from her mom whether or not she is going to be allowed to come back and stay for a little bit with me in june. she needs to make up her mind, cuz it's a long process. i got the contact stuff to make reservations home but i was hoping mom would write to them with my recomendations. I want to be home byt june 3rd at the latest, cuz it would mean a lot to me to see cayla n katie graduate. :) 2 of my closest friends, i think it would mean a lot to them too. tht would be cool.

so now i'm totally out of things to say. and im tired. school tomorrow, saturday, but still only a half day.

im making progress i can tell....

always lori