Sunday, July 30

Egg Drop

Well, I'm in Korea and at the moment all my blogger links are in Korean script. Very strange. I'm here teaching English for three weeks to a class of 12 adorable (mostly) students. I teach for 3 hours in the morning, eat an awful lunch and then for 3 more hours in the afternoon before another awful meal.

They've changed things around this year though, so that my 3 hours in the afternoon are the same lesson but with different kids. Much less planning required. And my afternoon lessons are fun! I'm teaching them about the post office and we write letters home and then after a 30 minute break in which they go out and buy such delicious snacks as "Fried Chicken Snack" which looks like minature KFC drum legs completely with a piece of dried chicken inside or "Squid Covered Peanuts" we do a science project. And it's fun as they we are doing an egg drop.

I give each group supplies:
1 1.5 liter soda bottle with the top cut off
1 piece of bubblewrap (which we learn to say, so funny!)
1 piece of cotton
4 rubber bands
2 pieces of tape
1 egg

And the object of course, is to save your egg from death when it is dropped from knee level, hip level, shoulder level and above the head level.

Well, the first day I did this I built up the suspense, delayed the introduction of the egg until the end and then spent the time explaining that they wanted their egg to live. I turned around to begin handing out supplies and my elbow bumped the eggs knocking them all to the floor. All eggs are now dead. The kids and I stand their shocked.

New plan:
You build your egg shelters, I go find new eggs, then we drop. So I run downstairs to our resource room where the counselors tell me there are no more eggs.

Next New Plan:
You build your egg shelters, we all go to the store, then we drop. But they got so into the building that I just ran off to the store myself where, to my delight, I find that they sell eggs in cute packs of 3, which is exactly how many groups I have! I return, the proud successful teacher and the students then spend 5 minutes explaining to me that I have bought cooked eggs :-o

It doesn't matter! Cooked eggs still crack, I say. And we continue with much hilarity.

Since then, I haven't dropped any more eggs :)

Saturday, July 29

More about Sweden

I see that I never posted again about my time in Sweden though I meant too. I really, really, really love Sweden in the summer time. Swedish people are really friendly, it's super easy to get around as everyone (young and old) speaks English and it's BEAUTIFUL!

I did mostly follow my itinerary and added a trip to the ski town of Are (put a circle above the "a" and pronounce it Oh-rah) which was my favorite part. I hiked up a beautiful mountain stayed and a very comfortable, friendly ski lodge and just had a blast.

Once reunited with Magnus and Linus we immediately set off for a 3 day, 65 km (40 mi) canoe trip that Linus had ambitiously planned. We ended up having to paddle for 8 hours a day to complete it, but it was so fun. Emilie, Linus's girlfriend, is awesome and super friendly and laid back. She was a great hostess all the times that Linus had other things to do. Not to say Linus is a bad host, he let me into his apartment, dye his clothes pink, fed me incredibly well. I just had so much fun.

I hope I remember to come back here and write about the crazy things in Sweden. But now I'm in Korea, surrounded by a whole new style of craziness.