Tea Day

"Don't forget to have Tea Days!" "Yeah, they're the best days of the term!" Joann and Thula gave us their last instructions before they left Cheonan on our first day at our institute. Later Fabrice, the other teacher here, filled us in about what Tea Days entailed. Apparently, in the SDA Language School system every English teacher is supposed to schedule two Tea Days for each of their adult classes. On Tea Days we are allowed to neglect the lesson of the day and can just talk and get to know each other better. Everyone in the class brings food or drinks and we spend our class hour learning more about each class member. What a brilliant idea, eh?! We fully intended to add Tea Days to our class schedule, but amidst all the hustle and bustle of trying to figure out our new life in Korea, we forgot all about it.

The other week Fabrice brought up Tea Days again and we quickly fit them into our schedules. I had my first Tea Day on Friday morning with my religion class. I have five religion students, but with the amazing amount of food spread out over several desks, you would have thought I have at least 10 students! We had such a great time trying new foods and fellowshipping together. Then yesterday, the review day for the unit we are studying in our textbook, I had Tea Days with both my morning and evening English classes. Again we had a vast array of foods and I learned a lot about Korean cultures and holidays from my students. Here are some pictures from Friday's Tea Day and the aftermath. (Both my students and Jonathan's left all the extra food for us and Fabrice to finish. We ate as much as we could and still had food to spare to serve for our vespers program that evening!) Unfortunately, I forgot all about pictures yesterday, but I'll do my best to remember to take some during my final Tea Days of the term.

The majority of the food for our religion class Tea Day

Yummy tea Elizabeth brought

My wonderful religion class!: Elizabeth, Meg, Linda, Mia & Neo

The leftovers from Jonathan's and my Tea Days