Joy and Whims

Sunday, October 2, 2011

DIY: Simple Stunning Pin

YOU CAN MAKE THIS ^^^

Here is what you need, hot glue gun (with glue), piece of leather or felt, pin, buttons, feathers, OH and scissors, a marker and something circular to trace.

Start by tracing a circle, or drawing one on the leather/felt.

Cut out your circle.

Fold circle in half and make small cut through the center.

Make sure the hole goes all the way through, you may have to poke back through it carefully with your scissors.

Insert feathers into the hole to the point that you want.

Turn over to apply the hot glue.

Glue underneath the feathers to secure them to the backside- also make sure if you marked on your material to make that side the backside.

After gluing your feathers should lay flat like seen above. Cut off any excess feather that may pop out around the edges from the back.

Arrange buttons how you would like them and glue them to each other and then to the leather/felt.

Next add the pin to the back; if you would like to make it look even cleaner, cut a piece of felt that is the same size (or leather) and glue it to the back to cover the feather edges and then glue on the pin.

If you like the Pins but don't want to make one, support me at my Etsy shop Fanciful Whims .

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Marketing/Life these days

I am a horrible marketer.

I do not know how to sell myself or my product other than in an art fair scenario.

I have attempted the Etsy thing and I have realized I am going to have to connect all my different facets of internet to be more successful. Facebook, Pinterest, Etsy and my Blog need to get together and be friends. I realize this will take much more effort from me and a bit more work to keep it all up, but perhaps, just perhaps I can start to sell myself enough to quit my day job......

Oh did I mention what my day job now is? Yes I am working at an after-school daycare, a job I did not need an undergraduate degree to get. I am not complaining or anything, but it does seem that more and more of my very educated wonderful friends are working one to three part time jobs to cover bills/live. I mean at least they have jobs, but it seems silly we wasted all that time in college to work entry level jobs.

Anyway the job is challenging, I love kids, but I sometimes wish I didn't know what they were saying- like it was in Korea. Kids are MEAN. I forgot about that. I also forgot how ridiculous their fights are, I mean, I knew in Korea they fought over stupid things, but here I understand just how stupid.

When is it that we learn to use a little logic? When do we learn to stop hitting or calling each other mean names? Or do we not learn? Some people just hit in a different way, or behind the back so as not to get in trouble. Are we taught to be good in school or just to hide the evil in our hearts?

Woah it just got spiritual. I guess working with kids you can easily see the absence of peace, or the presence of a darkness very easily. I know children are children and are still learning and very much a reflection of the environment they are raised in; in need of grace, but somewhere along the line we are faced with the question of will you serve Him or not. Will you reject your selfish human nature and cling to something outside you, or continue in 'your' path.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Things I will Miss

1. I will miss walking to work and feeling like I am in a movie. I pass by trash, old women on scooters who deliver stuff all over town, then a tae-kwon-do school where I hear energetic music and kids laughing and chanting, next I cross the street and the soundtrack changes to the Piano music from the piano hagwon, and depending on the season I walk up the hill under yellowing Ginkgo trees, flowering cherry trees, or overhanging red roses. (Oh and did I mention that the sidewalk is rubberized? Blacksburg can't even rubberize their track...)

2. I will miss not paying taxes on everything since

it is built into the price (as it should be).

3. I will miss not paying tips at restaurants.

4. I will miss scottering and parking right in front of whatever location we are going to.

5. I will miss the ability to walk outside in a park a

nd drink wine or beer. People in America don't realize the liberties they are lacking until they visit other countries. Now I am not saying I will miss public drunkenness, but I like picnics with wine.

6. I will miss not getting too stuck in traffic because we can drive on the sidewalk.

7. I may occasionally miss the dying horns from cabs and buses that fade out because they are used to much. I see it as a sign of justice.

8. I will miss how fast things are done in Korea. You go to the bank for a bank card and they hand it over to you within 5 minutes. You go to the International offices and have someone who speaks english helping you within 15 minutes, usually faster and you can extend your visa or get other documentation done in one sitti

ng. I think of the DMV and I shudder.

9. I will miss my students. Well most of them. Although they can be a pain, I know I have a wonderful bunch of kids. It has been so fun to see their English improve and be able to read or answer questions or communicate in ways they couldn't before. I know I am not the best English teacher, but there is evidence that God has made me at least a little successful.

10. I will miss my co-teachers, who although I never get to spend enough time with, have been wonderful.

11. I will miss random festivals that we can bus to, or stop at in town.

12. I will miss weekend trips all over Korea and all the craziness that happens on them.

13. I will miss being an hour from the beach and running into people randomly in subways on the way.

14. I will miss coffee shop talks.

15. I will miss having the choice of 5 different cute coffee shops at almost any location.

16. I will miss the grocery store being literally a minute walk from my house.

17. I will miss people at locations I frequent knowing my name and what I like to order.

18. I will miss the Sangnam Market where they know me and I buy dresses all the time for near nothing (quality dresses at that).

19. I will miss Korean fashion and how they dress up every tiny store.

20. I will miss meeting any non-korean and having a kindredness simply because we are not from Korea. A foreign country is an excellent place to meet people. We all bond so fast because we can.

21. I will miss the freedom of knowing if I wanted I could set up my own little vending table with goods outside.

22. I will miss having super low living expenses. I may even miss our tiny studio apartment.

23. I will miss Yongji-lake nights, Korean culture nights filled with beef and singing-rooms, and Sunday movie nights.

24. I will miss my church. Smyrna has become our little family. It felt that way from the beginning which is why we started going there. We had our wedding there and have made so many good memories with our friends from Smyrna.

25. Stephen and I have been blessed with an amazing friends group. It's a set of about 10-15 that we do most things with and it has been AWESOME! We have had so much fun traveling around Korea with them and taking day trips or exploring festivals.....God willing we will meet up again even though we all live in different corners.

Stephen and I have been so blessed in Korea. We have learned so much and feel like we have grown a lot too. We are recognizing so many blessings in our lives and now it is almost time to leave. Stephen is on his second to last day of teaching. I have 4 more weeks. We have had an amazing adventure here and now we are excited about what is prepared for us to come.....

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Reading List

Since I have been in Korea I have found I have been reading a bit more.

I started out with the books I brought, "True Spirituality" by Schaeffer (I admit I did not make it all the way through) and some re-reading of "Orthodoxy" by G.K. Chesterton.

Then I made my way to online books!

I read "Sense and Sensibility" which I picked due to the fact that I did not remember what happened in the movie.... well there is a reason I didn't remember what happened, I already don't remember what happened in the book. I read it not 6 months ago.

Then came borrowed books! Yay!!

First was "Tai Pan" by James Clavell- It is not for the most feint of heart, but it is excellently written and a very interesting historical fiction.

Failures:

I attempted a book called "Tipperary" and failed, it was too slow and I kept falling asleep as it kept going back and forth to explain historical aspects of a man's life story. bleh. I found the book "Natural Birth Control" more exciting.

I also failed in re-reading "Alice in Wonderland"....you'd think I'd make it through a 120 page story, but you'd be wrong, I only made it to page 68.

To redeem myself I did read "Blink," and left that in Guam with a 19 year old boy who is getting married to his 18 year old girlfriend this month. (That's a whole other story)

I am shamed to say that after "Blink" I bought "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" to have something to read on the beach. It did the job.

We found a thrift store in Guam and snagged some books. I got "The Wedding Dress" and "The Unit" by Ninni Holmqvist (strongly recommend).

"The Wedding Dress" is an easy read about women post-civil war time and felt like something my mom would have read me when I was home-schooled; it is now in the possession of one of my former students- she finished it while corralling high school boys in her homeroom.

"The Unit" made me think a LOT, it's basically a story about a not so future time and what the value of a person is. I lent this to a friend and she finished it within the week.

THEN came "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss (More strongly recommend), then it's sequel "Wise Man's Fear"- These books are excellent, the main character is.....well he is a read-headed wonder. Unfortunately the Author may take another 4-10 years before releasing the final book. He took 10 years on the first one and the second was only recently released.

Simultaneously, while reading the King Killer Chronicles (above) I read "The Power of Words and the Wonder of God" (interesting) and finally "Bluebeard" by Kurt Vonnegut (strongly recommend). I am not sure if I liked it better than "Player Piano" but it was very interesting and funny.

That's 12 full books, (13 if you count my "Discovery" Bible study) in 8 months.

And I used to hate to read.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Ten Things I Hate About Korea

1. General rudeness: People not moving to one side when on the sidewalk and they see you/ bumping into me all the time.

2. Gawking children: I cried this week in church and tried to get away to a bathroom. Kids kept knocking on the door and then when they realized I was a foreigner they called in more children. When I left to get away from them they followed and kept looking at me from around the corner.

3. Students not taking their jackets off when they are hot: I do not care if their jacket is the symbol of their status; if you are hot you take off your out layers, you DO NOT ask for the air conditioner to be turned on or open the window to the freezing outdoors letting out all the expensive heat out.

4. Korean Myths: Fan death is a particular favorite of mine, but I am more closely bothered by the belief that if they don't open up the windows in the winter they will get sick from the 'dirty' inside air. Now I understand the inside air is not the best, but neither is the polluted outside air and when given the choice I prefer not to freeze. And they wonder why everyone stays sick all winter.

5. Sales people: In America, as well as many other countries, we have this thing called 'personal space'. Well the Korean belief is that you need help all the time. So whenever you enter a small store you have a window of about a minute before an employ invades your space to speak Korean you don't know and hold up items showing you different aspects. Stephen often does a voice over as they show us an item,"This is a purple bag, as you can see there are pockets, the zipper unzips and this is the shoulder strap which is useful to carry the bag." I wish someone would tell them the best way to sell me something is not to come near me.

6. Drivers: Taxi drivers, bus drivers, scooter drivers, and the occasional regular idiot. There are no stop signs or traffic cops and therefore everyone is agresseive. Buses want to kill you, taxis honk at you whenever you are walking and drive in multiple lanes at a time, and scooters do all kinds of scary weaving in and out of traffic. And they all run red lights. I consider buses the most terrifying when I am crossing a street.

7. Buses: Aside from the fact that Buses try to kill me when I am walking, I also hate using them because I never know the name of the stop I am going to. Therefore I depend on maps (which are normally around) to figure out what bus goes where. Unfortunately around 4 times I have gotten on the wrong bus. VERY frustrating to say the least.

8. Crazy people on the subway: Why is it every time I get on the subway there is someone mumbling/yelling/selling things/handing out papers of something to recite? This week it was a man who seemed drunk yelling at everyone. I felt very uncomfortable and I believe the rest of the car felt the same from the looks on their faces.

9. Not having time for dinner: I have two days a week now where I have 5 classes in a row. 3-8 and only have around 7 minutes between each one. That isn't even enough time to eat ramen... I also hate eating ramen for dinner.

10. Students in classes they shouldn't be in: Hagwons (the private after school academies) don't say no. So when a student's mother asks for them to be in a class at 5 but they are 3 levels below the lowest level class at 5, they put them in the lowest level anyway. I was just at the point where all my classes were relatively at the right level....I should have known it was too good to last, my kids are all over the place now.

I think I could write a 'Ten things I hate about bad Korean students' but that might be too mean.

I hope you enjoyed my Korea venting. And no worries, soon I will do an uplifting "10 things I love about Korea."

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Christmas Story

This week I thought I would do the terribly un-politically correct thing and explain to my kids why Christmas is called CHRIST-mas and what the meaning of the tree is- and strangely enough I didn't really have a clue how I would explain it till I started; I give the Spirit credit.

It started out with a question: What is Christmas about?

I got the same answers in almost every class, they went something like this....

Santa

Snow

Presents

Tree

Snowman

Rudolf

After that I explain that Christ-mas is when some celebrate Jesus' birthday. Then I ask if they know who Jesus is, or Yesu as they know him, and ask where he was born. Most of them think a house and then I draw a crude drawing of a 'barn' where animals live and say Jesus was born there. Then I draw a 'fancy' little tree and ask what is on top, and they all pretty much know it's a star. Only in one class did I get a kid who was like "Santa," and he said it twice like it was most certainly the real answer even though I had said a star.

So why the star? Well, as it turns out there was a star over baby Jesus.

And what goes under the tree?- Gifts

But why?

Well, Jesus was a gift, so we exchange gifts to think about Jesus.

At this point, when I have drawn my arrows (see image below) most of the kids do an "ah!"

for their understanding. Then we proceed to color christmas tree cards or manger scenes.

What is particularly interesting is a number of my older students had already made up their minds that they do not like or believe in Jesus. It hurt my heart when one of my favorite students said "I hate Jesus," but hopefully every time they open a Christmas gift now the Lord reminds them it is because of Jesus, and maybe one day they will look up who he is and the whole story and not hate Jesus.

I have been reading a Bible study and it talks about the state of man without God; without the Holy spirit, and when I felt hostility from the kids I immediately thought about it.

But the man who isn't a Christian (or 'in the Spirit' in other versions) can't understand and can't accept these thoughts from God, which the Holy Spirit teaches us. They sound foolish to him, because only those who have the Holy Spirit within them can understand what the Holy Spirit means
(1 Corinthians 2:14 TLB)
On the other hand, I did find out quite easily who of my students are from Christian families because they knew about Yesu and the story. They all got quite excited and were really cute about it. I am pretty sure some of them even told more of the story when we were coloring, and some I think got slack for believing in Jesus as well; nothing overly mean, but some teasing.

Luckily there is good news; that is what those angels proclaimed thousands of years ago. Jesus was a gift and if we choose Him, His Spirit gives us understanding and salvation.

But this Christmas I hope I can remember this prayer Jesus had for us as he prepared to head to the cross....

"My prayer for all of them is that they will be one, just as you and I are one, Father- That just as you are in me and I am in you, so they will be in us, and the world will believe you sent me. I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are - I in them and you in me, all being perfeted into one. Then the world will know that you sent me and will understand that you love them as much as you love me."
John 17:21-23 NLT

Near unbelievable! God loves us as much as He loves Jesus. That is why Jesus came those 2000 years ago and willingly took on the most disgusting thing to him, the thing that was the opposite of his character and one thing that could separate Him from his Father, sin. It died with him and he conquered it in his resurrection.

That is the Gift we remember this year and pray that the world accepts it that we may be one.