heart sabbatical

This past year since I arrived back in Korea has been a full one, packed like a bulging suitcase with  extremes; extreme highs , extreme lows, landmarks and downfalls in both my personal and love life. Things of which I have alluded to on here but not given the full un-edited version.

Sadly, for the past few months the bad moments have overtaken the good, and while I could brush them off like raindrops before, now I feel as if I'm caught up in a full blown rainstorm. 

For these reasons I have made the difficult decision to cut my contract with my school early and take some time off to go home and be with my family. To give myself the time and space for my heart to recover, for wounds to heal.

Living in a foreign country has the most amazing benefits in terms of life experience and rich memories to treasure but when things turn sour it can be a lonely, lonely position to be in.

Right now I'm looking forward to returning to the familiar, the loved ones, the comfort of my real home.

I hope you guys keep following me while I'm on my healing heart sabbatical.

My parents live in the rural countryside of Ireland, the perfect place for relaxation and wound-licking!

And gosh how I can't wait to give my parents a big koala-bear hug! 

kindie teacher moment of the week

Messing around with the Smile Cat App on your iphone with your 7 year olds is educational, non?

Well it's way more fun than practicing for a spelling test anyway...

^.^

❂ bisous ❂

Today was a slow burnin', takin' it easy, kids are off on spring break kind of day.

I spent the best half of this morning re-organizing our school library with children's book dust up my nose and in my hair and the delicious smell of musty, well-worn pages.

I so badly wanted to take my cup of chamomile and curl up in a corner with a stack of books and just read and read.

Children's book titles are simply the most enticing things to ten-year-old Louise's brain: 'The Accidental Zuchinni', 'Willie the Dreamer' and 'I love Cloud Bread' were some of my favorites of the day.

I love the dreaminess of kid's books, how the author can just flip open their head like a lid and let their imagination fly out onto the pages.

I have a secret little dream to be a children's book writer one day

When I was tiny I would lay in bed and Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton would take me by the hand and lead me on the most fantastical adventures every single night.

When I think back on those stories of magic and whimsy I am reminded of pure joy and happiness.

I'd love to to do that for a child one day too.

❂ bisous! ❂

kindie teacher moment of the week

Give two six year old girls a Batman mask printout and they'll quite literally turn him into a big ol' Queen,

beauty spot and all

 ~.^

You can also find me filling in for Nat over at Modern Buttercup today sharing this cute teepee stamp DIY.

Go check it out!

& finally a big congratulations to Natalie, she was the winner of my cute Korean stationary giveaway!

Peace, love & triple high fives people x

kindie teacher moment of the week

Check this pair out.

Bambini Kindergarten's resident lovebirds, Jessica and Johny, wearing their finest hanbok (korean traditional dress) to wish you all a "Happy Lunar New Year' in Korean.

This was because Koreans celebrated their traditional holiday Seollal (Lunar New year) this weekend..

I was invited by my lovely co-worker to observe the holiday with her and her family at her Grandmother's home but unfortunately this cold I can't seem to shake kept me in bed most of the weekend.
Otherwise I could have spent two days helping her family make traditional Korean foods, play folk games and perform ancestral rites at the graves of their dead relatives.

I'm sorry to have missed out on being a part of this very closely guarded part of the Korean culture~ the fact that they still observe their holiday traditions so fervently is why the sense of tradition and culture has been preserved in this country so successfully.

According to the Zodiac, Asians believe we are entering the Year of the Snake...in the Chinese Zodiac the snake symbolizes mystery and malevolence. 
Previous Snake Year's have included the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, the Tienanmen Square protests in 1989 and the 2011 terror attacks in New York.

What do you think?
Is this a year of bad omen or is it all a bunch of smoke and mirrors?

kindie teacher moment of the week

It's a hard life... being 6 years old, having the in-my-opinion-the cutest-name-ever: Bernard, being the cutest kid in school and all at the same time rocking this unbelievable superhero hoodie.

Can you seriously handle this cute?

Me? No.

Makes my womb do ten round-house kicks and fifteen back-flips just looking at this picture.

I can't wait for the day I have my own babies to squeeze....~.^

kindie teacher moment of the week

Our little 5 year-old bobbin, Julie, spinning and swaying and doing swirly whirlies with big ol' hearts in her eyes, clearly feeling quite the Disney princess in her sparkly pink birthday girl dress.

Can anyone ever get enough of cute tiny humans?

I can't watch them practice this graduation dance routine without my heart dancing a little bit inside.

>.<

Roots & Feathers Guest Post// South Korea and the Universal Map

I wish you all a colorful Friday friends!

Today it feels a little like my birthday~ it's my honor to be guest posting over at one of my all-time favorite blogs Roots & Feathers, written by the beautiful and talented Laura.

Head over to check out how I woke up at the end of the tornado in the weird and wonderful 'Land of the Morning Calm'.

And I get to use my favorite word in the whole dictionary, 'kismet' ^^

Read here

Kindie teacher moment of the week

I set a class of 7 year old boys the project of making paper chain dolls of them with their friends.

The results?

Monsters, aliens, dumbo ears, rabbit suits and apparent fire-breathing skills.

Such is the life of a kindie teacher.

the Highs. the Lows. the Kiddos

Like most, I've had a million and one dreams of what I want to be when I "grow up".

Children's writer, nutritionist, farm owner, bohemian body-tattooed circus contortionist.

Full-time Kindergarten teacher in a Korean English Academy was, I'm sure of it, never consciously added by me to that list.

Perhaps I have a chuckling spirit guide who came and wrote it in there in invisible ink or something because here I am, 29 years of age, at my third year of teaching in Korea.

My first two years here were breezy~ I was stationed at a Public Middle School in a beautiful coastal city, I met and started dating Dallas and we had an amazing set of friends, my work hours were short and the pay was so good I easily saved up for 3 months of adventuring with Dallas before returning back.

This time round Dallas and I decided to try our hand at teaching Kindergarten- not for government schools this time but privately owned English Academies or hagwons as they are known here. Cast your eye back to this starry-eyed post I wrote while I was preparing for my journey back to the Land of the Morning Calm....

there was definitely a death-grip on optimism going on in that post because life as a children's teacher has been everything but the candy-colored fantasy I'd envisioned. There my mind's eye was...dressing me up in cute peter-pan collared outfits, singing songs for the kids and painting rainbows like fricking Julie Andrews!

What I wasn't prepared for were the long, long hours, the large classes of under-7's all needing your attention at the same time. The constant fighting over who gets the longer pencil, the bigger eraser, who carries the teacher's book to to the next class or who sits in what chair.  The lunches they just wont eat. The snot,  the tears, the vomiting. The language barrier that is just as much frustrating for them as it is for you.

Lawd. I've had to give myself time-out more times than I care to mention where I just slowly count to ten and breathe for a minute during some cuckoo classroom scrimmages.
For all my fantasising and good intentions I'd willingly blinkered myself to a pretty glaring matter: KIDS ARE HARD WORK!! 

BUT, but.....

For every day Ive wanted to forget there's been another that I've loved and locked in my memory forever,  for every class that ended in tears and frustration there's been a class full of pure learning and creativity, for every ornery student there's scores more whose smiles and positive energy lift me up and inspire me. 
These kids and this year's experiences have forced me to grow  up more and learn more about myself and my potential than any other job I have put my hand to.
A happy teacher= happy students, folks

  There's a lesson in here champs. A lesson I've learned the hard way but the only way I could learn it. Testing myself, pushing myself to my very limit and not running away from a situation just because I didn't like it has been one of the most stimulating, rewarding and satisfying experiences for my heart and my soul. 

I recommend it....

...just go in with your eyes wide open, not crossed with stars like mine were, that's all!

Lemon Teacher

                                                

Well gosh! I feel a little like I just finished my fifteenth turn on the  fairground Waltzer. Have I really been back in Korea for three weeks already? This lil lady has a had a time of it these last three I can tell you. First came the sickness and the jet lag, mix that up with a fistful of kiddlies and a bellyful of high emotions at being reunited with Dallas again. Well I repeat, it's been a time! Finally however it seems my world has stopped spinning fast enough for me to step off the ride and start enjoying the carnival. Teaching Kindergarten is certainly a carnival every day and somewhere in between the screams and tantrums, the nose blowing and trips to the bathroom I am starting to really enjoy being "Mom" slash "Lemon Teacher" (a cute new nick-name on account of my yellow hair ^^). I am now a home-room teacher to a class of six year olds (including one particularly ornery gentleman, goes by the name of Tom, check him on the far right) and despite the presence of this one little hooligan i am warming to the role of mother hen to my brood of chicklets. As the weeks clock by the little ones are showing me ever more trust and affection and it just melts my heart to a little puddle whenever one of them runs up to hug me in the hallway or comes up behind me to rub their face in my "Rapunzel" hair (!). I honestly don't think I fully grasped what i was getting myself into when I opted to teach this age group this time round, but now I'm in this I'm just going to hang on and enjoy the ride...❤

Aren't we all just dots on the map?





                    

                                                  

The winds of change have arrived and whipped up a fair storm around here... billowing and blowing and whispering promises of good things to come, they've left me all dazed and excited and pulling the twigs from my hair.

  I'm about 90% ready to pack my bags and leave for Korea again. Just me and my plane ticket. After 4 whole months of steady family and home time it's going to seem a little strange to up and leave my freshly feathered nest. But I just know once I see that back-pack sitting at the end of the bed full and ready to go I'll get that old tingling delicious butterfly feeling of wanderlust in the pit of my stomach again.

And, of course, I just can't wait to end 4 painful months of missing this fellow:

Handsome. And that's Korea behind him and above. Pretty, no? Actually there's little about these pictures that don't make me want to hoist my bag up on my back like a travelling gypsie and walk on over to Korea this minute!

Oh, and I'm to teach little children :) I just know already I'll want to put them in my pocket and take them home with me at the end of each day. Korean kids are the darn cutest.

I have about 2 weeks to prepare my poor little heart for a lot of goodbyes that I just don't want to think about yet.

So for now I'm just going to listen to Devendra and plan out my teacher outfits and count down the days till I see my love.

Here's to good changes and happy travels.

♥