I Wish I Was 4

Hello! So, last Sunday was the Gwacheon Marathon Festival. There were 4 races: 5K, 10K, Half, and Full marathons. My friends and I ran in the 10K (although a few brave people from our team ran in the half). I run with a group of foreigners in Korea called Team Dirt. Most of us are English teachers. The group was set up by our friend Justin in order to raise money for CHM research. CHM is a rare, inherited eye disease that causes progressive loss of vision. It ran in his family, and now his brother is affected by it. Click here to learn more about Team Dirt!

Team Dirt tent

Audrey, Chrissy, Q, me, and John post-race

So this was my very first race, EVER. And I did ok actually. I had signed up for the 10K, but as we found out later, the course had been measured incorrectly, and our 10K was actually 11K. My official time was 1:07:59, but had the race been the length it was supposed to be, its safe to assume it would’ve been less. So I’m not fast, but at least I didn’t come in last. Overall though, it was a really fun time. A few people from our team even placed in their respective races, so it was really fun to cheer for them on the podium. Every race, there is a self-imposed theme for how we should dress. This time around was Superheroes. As some of the only non-Koreans in the race, we stood out enough as it was, but the race photographers were loving our group and I’m sure a bunch of my friends’ pictures are already scattered around the internet and newspapers here. I sort of missed the superhero memo, but I wasn’t alone J

So, this is such a weird story. Where my school is, is pretty rural, and except for the teachers at the elementary and middle school near me, there are no other foreigners. The other day I was getting on the bus to go home after work, and this Korean girl turns around and asks me where I’m from. Now, I get asked that question a lot, and I can never gauge someone’s English from such a simple sentence. So I said “The U.S.”. She asked “Where?” and I said “Chicago” (let’s face it, no one has a clue what or where Wisconsin is). Homegirl busts out with a “Oh, I’m from Dayton, Ohio”. Um…excuse me WHAT?! Turns out, she’s on a break from UD because she’s been having some visa issues, and her family is from Yangju (the city where my school is). I was so surprised, and I told her…I was actually JUST in Ohio, and my parents are from Cleveland. She’s only been in the States for 5 years or so, and speaks English incredibly well considering she couldn’t speak it at all when she first moved there. We figured out that we had both arrived back in Korea at the exact same time a few weeks ago, although on different flights. How weird is that? The more I travel, the smaller this world gets…

Speaking of travel…I found this great article which sums up so well everything that I feel and believe about travel and why we do it. It makes you smarter (there’s proof!). It makes you more open minded. People who travel or have immersed themselves in a completely different culture tend to be more creative because they recognize that a single thing can have several different meanings. Its not just the physical distance from home that gives us a different perspective, although it does help to separate you from issues so that you can see what’s truly important to you. Its also the confusion of being somewhere unfamiliar that allows us to think outside the box. Click here to read the article. I admit, its kind of long. But I promise its worth your time. Hopefully reading this article will either help you understand me more, or it will inspire you to travel J

Here’s another story for you all. On my phone here, I tend to get lots of phone calls and text messages in Korean. Its really common for companies to send a text, rather than have a telemarketer call. Usually, when I answer the phone in English, and the person at the other end realizes that I won’t magically start speaking Korean, they give up, and we both hang up. Well, the other day at school, I received what I assumed was another phone call like the others I’ve gotten before. The person at the other end was being persistent, however, and continued to call back 3 or 4 more times. I was sitting in the office in school, and none of the other English teachers were around, but one of my students who speaks English relatively well was next to me. I asked her if she would please talk to whoever was on the phone and explain to them that I don’t speak Korean. So I had the phone to little Hyunhee and she starts babbling to the man on the phone. I hear a burst of laughter from the other teachers in the room. Apparently she (quite forcefully) asked the man to “NEVER CALL THIS PHONE NUMBER AGAIN”. Now…this wouldn’t be funny if it were just a stranger or a telemarketer. But who was on the other end of the phone? The POLICE. Yeah…the Korean police. Apparently there had been an emergency call made from my phone…which I know is not even possible because I checked my outgoing calls and there was no emergency number dialed, so it was obviously just a big misunderstanding. But ohhh I felt so bad, making my poor little student talk to the police. They didn’t believe her at first, and she had to keep repeating herself: “Really, I’m not lying, this is a foreigner’s phone and she doesn’t speak Korean, and NEVER CALL ME AGAIN.” By that time, my co-teacher had gotten into the room and was laughing at how adamant Hyunhee was being to the police. She told me that the police definitely won’t be calling me again because Hyunhee sent a very clear message. My bad.

Its midterm time in school, which means I have a lot of time to sit around at work and catch up on all of my American television. Friday we got out of school early and I went hiking with my teachers at Suraksan. The weather was a little crazy, going between rain and sunshine, but it was really warm so overall the climb to the top was really nice.

Sang-Jin and me at the top of Surak Mountain

Suraksan (수락산)

Saturday morning I hopped on the subway bright and early for a nearly 2 hour trek to Suwon to Rebecca's apartment. We then met up with Q, John, and Sara in the Sinsa (신사) area of Seoul, which has endless restaurants, boutiques, wine bars, and cafes. Its definitely my favorite neighborhood in Seoul because of the diversity; plus there's an amazing little bakery with cupcakes that are sooooo yummy. We ate brunch at The Flying Pan, which has great paninis, omelettes, pancakes, french toast, and more. It was really nice to have a real brunch. Like I've said, in Korea they eat the same stuff for breakfast that they would eat for lunch or dinner, which I absolutely cannot stand. I need some cereal and eggs in the morning. After the Flying Pan we stopped at the bakery and then found a cute cafe/wine bar called the Alley Cafe. We sat and enjoyed a glass of wine before parting with the boys to enjoy our afternoon some more.

Alley Cafe

Sara, Reebs and I went to a little Italian restaurant called Sognare. It was still warm out so we sat outside in the back of the restaurant and enjoyed the last of the daylight before going back to Suwon.

Sognare

Sunday we woke up and after breakfast hopped on the subway to Seoul Grand Park, which is only about a 30 minute subway ride from Rebecca's apartment. It was one of the warmest days of the season so far, and we were soaking up every bit of it. Seoul Grand Park is the overall area that contains Seoul Land Amusement Park, the Seoul Zoo, and several other smaller parks. We took a sky lift to the entrance of the zoo, and then another to the back of the zoo, so we could walk through the zoo and end at the front.

Seoul Grand Park

Seoul Zoo entrance

We were in all of our 4-year-old glory carrying around Hello Kitty balloons and drinking slushies.

We had a little picnic in the zoo and had a great time watching all the adorable fat little Asian babies. By far the strangest animals we saw were the raccoons. Yeah...there were raccoons at the zoo. What? They're not native to Asia and their cage was therefore surrounded by people exclaiming how "kyopta" or "cute" the raccoons were and trying to pet them. We had a hard time being understood when we all freaked out when kids tried putting their fingers through the bars to pet the raccoons that were reveling in all the attention they were getting. Those things are nasty and mean and definitely not meant to be petted by little children. Ew. Here's some pics from the zoo (the giraffes were my favorite!):

Red Panda

Giraffe!!

Meerkats

Sunset from the zoo

Tomorrow (Tuesday) I’m leaving for Jeju with Sara. Our flight leaves around 8:30 on Tuesday night, and its only about an hour flight down to Jeju. We’ll be coming back Sunday afternoon. Jeju is sort of the Hawaii of Korea (Busan is like Miami). Our initial plan was to rent a car, but I was not able to get to the US Embassy in Seoul to get my US license notorized which I need in order to get a Korean license. So we’re just going to have to rough it, taking buses and taxis. There are lots of hikes, waterfalls, and beaches. I’m really disappointed we couldn’t rent a car, but some crackhead came up with the Embassy hours that involve them only being open for FOUR hours per day (and only 2 hours on Wednesdays). Seriously? What. The. Hell. Their job is to serve US citizens who live in Korea, and they seriously are only open 4 hours per day? Let’s hope nothing major happens while I’m over here, but I’ll quite literally never make it into the Embassy with those hours.

Your K-Pop song for the week comes from B2ST (pronounced "beast" - remember 2 in Korean is "ee"). The song is called Shock, enjoy!

Happy belated Birthday Mom! And Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad :)

"We travel because we need to, because distance and difference are the secret tonic of creativity. When we get home, home is still the same. But something in our mind has been changed, and that changes everything." -- Jonah Lehrer

Blog Fail

Wow..its been way too long, and AGAIN I’m sorry. Gonna be better I SWEAR from now on. The past few weeks have been outrageously crazy, and so here I am a month past my last entry struggling to keep up with where I’ve been and what I’ve done. Maybe you guys should start reading Sara's blog. She's been way better about it than I have. So since I last wrote, we had St. Patrick’s Day which was a crazy shit show full of free Guinness (yeah I know, I was in heaven) and lots of green. I picked out some snazzy green tights that made me look a little bit like Kermit when I wasn’t wearing shoes, but it just made the day that much more fun.

Mark, John, Reebs, me, Sara, and Anna at the St. Paddy's festival on Cheonggyecheon

I recently made a little trip to TechnoMart with Sara and Reebs to get a new cam for Reebs since she dropped hers in the ocean in Thailand (I mean…if you’re gonna do it, do it right, at least it wasn’t in Mendota). TechnoMart is 10 floors of electronics. We ran around to each counter, and get this, you can BARGAIN for your camera. Since when?! I’m sorta digging this whole uber-competitive bargaining thing that we have going on over here. Who gets to bargain for cameras? Can you imagine going up to the dude at Best Buy and being like…uhhh I think you can lower this a little bit. Amazing.

The weekend after St. Paddy’s, I went out in Apgujeong with the usual crowd. Apgujeong is sort of the “Beverly Hills” of Seoul. Some of the best fashion comes out of there, and there are tons of great boutiques, bars, and restaurants. So as we’re strolling along, I’m stopped by someone with a camera who asks (through Q’s translation) if he can take my picture. Why? Apparently I have style. Homeboy was diggin my lacy grey tights and also (somehow) thought I looked like Britney Spears. I hear that comparison a lot over here and it hurts a little more every time because I really don’t think I look ANYTHING like her. She’s blonde? I don’t get it. Moving on… Following behind Q and I were Sara, Rebecca, and John, who were also dressed super cute, and they had their pictures taken as well! So now we’re in the “street style” section of a Korean “Fashion Webzine”. Its called Musinsa. Here's my photo:

And you can find the rest of the gang here, but the entire thing is in Korean so you can’t really read. But you’ll get the idea. Oh and they screwed up everyone’s name, except mine. HA. The best was definitely Re Deccakuss? Who’s that? The comments people left were pretty hilarious too. They think Sara has a “body like Venus”, they think Rebecca looks cold (she was wearing a coat and took it off for the picture..duh, honestly where is their common sense), and that I really do look like Britney! If they say so.

We found a great bar called "Rainbow" that ended up being like Thailand...but inside. We drank out of buckets, sat on the ground, and smoked from a hookah. I wanna go back!

Rainbow

On a random Tuesday I scored some free tickets to the Aquarium at the COEX Mall in Seoul and dragged Rebecca along with me. Let’s just say…this is not your standard aquarium. I was thinking it would be sort of like the Shedd in Chicago, but on a little smaller scale. Ohhh no. It was super Korean. There were animals that did not belong in an aquarium, like bats, monkeys, and prairie dogs to name a few. The poor prairie dogs were trapped in this glass case that was all wrong for them. It was about the size of a phone booth, so they had tons of space above them (which is obviously inaccessible to a prairie dog) and virtually no space to run around in. Poor things L I was tempted to break them out.

Reebs and the prairie dogs

There were also fish in strange places. Stop lights, vending machines, toilets...?

Actual photo...no joke

We also saw some of the black-tipped reef sharks that we had swam with in Thailand. Seeing them like that made me feel a little wary of what I had done in Thailand. But I have all my fingers and toes and that’s all that matters. The aquarium was cool, I guess, but the landscaping for each animal was pretty bad…its like they didn’t even attempt to recreate a good habitat for them. So I kinda feel bad for the animals there.

This is just a random shark, NOT what we swam with in Thailand...just didn't get a good pick of the real one.

After the aquarium Reebs and I hit up the food court, which is your pretty standard mall food court, except of course its almost exclusively Korean food. We did find a Sbarro pizza place though, and each devoured two giant slices of pizza. The little Korean girl behind the counter seemed pretty shocked. I think she thought Reebs was ordering for the both of us when she placed her order, but nope, I followed suit and ordered two slices for myself. So there we were, just two American girls shoveling down pizza surrounded by Koreans happily eating their rice and kimchi and thinking we were crazy. I don’t care. Pizza beats kimchi any day.

So it was about this time (post-aquarium) that I was honestly intending to update my blog. But then I got some pretty upsetting news about my Gramps L Before I could really process what had happened, I was on a flight back to America so I could attend the funeral. It all sort of happened really quickly. Obviously, I was (and still am) really sad about it, but he made it to 92 so who could complain about that? While I was home I found a card he had sent me a few years back about how he hoped he would get to see me go into this big and exciting world and how I should see outside what I know and “partake of life”. So…I’m content knowing that he got to see me (literally) do that. I’m sure he didn’t have South Korea in mind when he wrote that card, but here I am. Out in the world and living it up! I will definitely miss him. ❤ I know he always read my blogs, so hopefully they have computers in Heaven so he can keep up.

Everyone at my school was so supportive and helpful. They were so nice about letting me go home to be with my family, and I received so many condolences and words of encouragement. Even the students offered comforting words...one girl told me she would "pray to [my] grandfather". Well I think she meant "for" but it sounded even sweeter that way.

My time in America was short (less than a week) and incredibly busy. I think I spent more days traveling than actually being there, but it was worth it. The visit was bittersweet but it did give me a chance to meet up with some college and high school friends and make some interesting comparisons between America and Korea. I went back to Madison to meet up with Mary and Maureen who drove up from Chicago and Meghan who still is in school there. Being back was soooo strange. Some things have really changed there, and yet others are still just the same. After meeting up with them I had coffee with my old roommate Ashley who is still recovering from her semester in Sevilla, Spain. Talking to her was so great, and I’m so excited because now I know she gets what Anna and I always said when we told her she had to study abroad and she would love it so much that she wouldn’t want to come back.

I had time to have lunch with Jane, who I danced with at Wisconsin and who is from Korea. I love talking with her because she always gives me good insight on some things that I may be misunderstanding about life in Korea or why things are done a certain way. Luckily, she’s spent enough time in the States to understand why I think certain things about Korea are strange or annoying. I also had dinner with Sarah which was amazing. I’m going to be missing her wedding this summer and I feel so bad. I wasn’t able to get the time off work, and after taking this impromptu emergency trip to the States, I wouldn’t have gotten the vacation time now anyhow. She filled me in on all of the wedding details and we got caught up on each other’s lives so it was really nice. Plus we made a little Target run, and it was like I had never left! So although I was back in the States for a short amount of time and for a really sad reason, I was still able to make the most of my time there.

I had forgotten some of what life was like there. I felt sort of….hm. I don’t know the word. But in Korea there is definitely a set way of doing things. A way people dress, talk, think, act, eat, etc. If you don’t look or talk or act like everyone else then you stand out – and I think in Koreans minds, in a bad way. They don’t really seem to understand why we wear or do or say the things we do. They understand that our culture is different, yet they don’t understand our culture. Which makes sense. Most people don’t understand Korean culture unless they visit. Hell, I’ve been here for 8 months now and I still don’t understand it fully. But in America I felt like I could do almost literally whatever I wanted and nobody would really care or think twice about it. I didn’t feel like I was being looked at the way I feel the eyes on me here. I know I don’t look Korean, but c’mon let’s get over it already. I forget how global I am sometimes, when I don’t think twice, no matter who sits next to me on the subway or what they’re wearing or what language they’re speaking. I forget that not everyone is like that. I hope people (everywhere) realize that there is, very literally, an entire world outside of what they know. Some of its better than what they know, some of it worse, some of it just completely different without any sort of quality scale; either way I think its important to learn about the world outside of your own.

I got back into Korea after a 12 1/2 hour flight to Tokyo from Chicago, a 2 hour layover in Tokyo, and another 2 1/2 hour flight to Seoul; followed by immigration, customs, baggage claim, and an hour bus ride back to my apartment. Yeesh. I crashed around 11:30 that night, almost immediately after I got home. I didn’t wake up until almost 2:00 the following afternoon. I’ve finally recovered from the serious effects of 2 straight weeks of jet lag.

Over the weekend I managed to make it out to see the cherry blossoms which are in full bloom right now. They look so unbelievable, they're beautiful!

Cherry blossoms!

Well, I checked my email while we were out. And I had a few urgent messages from Kelsey who was AT MY APARTMENT. We had failed to communicate with each other, and I thought she was coming on Tuesday, but was actually coming on Sunday. AHHH. So I was not near my apartment and she had to wait in the hallway for a few hours! I felt so bad. But while I was on my way home, I got a call from my co-teacher, who had received a call from my apartment manager saying that there was a girl sitting outside my apartment. If I gave him the OK, he had an extra key and would let her in. YES. So by the time I arrived home, Kelsey was there waiting for me. Lesson learned: communicate.

I had to work the full week at school unfortunately, so Kelsey spent a lot of time taking advantage of the nice weather and all the hiking on the mountains near my apartment. There's so many so she kept busy. We spent the evenings running, and eating at my favorite little Korean restaurant. It was actually great that she was visiting this week, although I couldn't spend much time with her during the day, but at night it was so nice to have her to run with. I have a 10K on SUNDAY and I have been seriously slacking in getting ready for it. She forced me to run everyday and it was actually really helpful to have someone there to push me.

The latest K-Pop song...I'm sure you're all so worried about it. Here is Lollipop Part 2 from the one and only Big Bang.

So coming up....its going to start to get super busy around here. The weather is getting nicer and we are packing our weekends full as much as possible. This Sunday I'm running in a 10K with several of my friends that live near me. On May 4th I'll be going to Jeju Island with Sara for a few days. Google image it. You'll be jealous. On the 20th, I'll be going with Reebs, Anna, John, and Q back to Busan. This time WITH reservations. We're going to do it a little classier than the love motel with spiders and condoms, and book a room in an actual hotel, hopefully on the beach. Get ready to be excited and jealous of my life all over again. If you made it to the end of the entry...thanks for staying with meeee.

"And though they may be parted, there is still a chance that they will see. There will be an answer, let it be." -- The Beatles

I'm Still Here!!!

I swear. I'm sorry. Its been nuts around here lately. In the process of a SUPER long post to update everyone on the past month of my life. Literally haven't had a free second since I got back from the States (yeah, I was in America!). Still don't have a free second (with good reason - I've been doing SO much!), its nearly 1 AM and its the first chance I've had all day to even consider writing; but I promise promise promise I will update soon. Stay tuned, I'm still around. Here's proof:

I'm eating some sort of jumbo sea creature (that was looking at me) at 4am in a soju tent in Seoul. See? I've been busy!

Promise to write again in a few days ❤

Learning to Love Kimchi

Is it weird that its taken me this long to like it? I actually want kimchi sometimes now. Not all the time of course. Not even most of the time, but every now and then...I want it. I'm so Korean.

Since I last wrote...let's see. Mostly just getting back into the swing of things at school. I'm pretty sure that it had been since last September since I had a true full week of classes at school. There was always at least a day where there was a test, or a holiday, or some reason why I didn't have to teach. Kind of nice. But now...the semester is in full gear and I think we're all coping with having to actually work since we've had so much downtime. Rough life ;)

So let's see. Last weekend I went out on Friday in Seoul with Sara, John, Q, and Rebecca. We went out in Itaewon which we almost never do. We'll definitely have to do it more often I think, because we had such a good time. Saturday I went out in Dongducheon with a big group of people who live in my area. We took up the biggest room at the noraebang which was hilarious, and pretty much every song turned into a group sing-a-long. Busted out some old school stuff, which is always fun.

This past weekend a group of us who live north of Seoul rented bikes and rode along the Han River in Seoul. I ended up with this crazy pink bike with a basket on the front. It was a little chilly out, but overall not too bad, and we had such a great time! Renting bikes was really cheap, even though we were late returning them.

Beenish, me and John in Yeouido Park in Seoul

After our long day of bike riding, we went out to celebrate our friend Chrissy's birthday with dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Hongdae and then out to our favorite spot...Zen Bar. This turned into the usual night of tequila and dancing followed by everyone crashing at my place (I'm the cheapest cab ride from Seoul). Sunday once we finally dragged ourselves out of bed we went for a little White Day date out to lunch and then to a movie.

Sarah, Reebs, Anna, and me @ Zen Bar in Seoul

Have I explained this already? I forget. White Day is sort of like another Valentine's Day. In Korea on Valentine's Day, the girls give the boys gifts. On March 14th, it is White Day when the girls receive gifts and candy from the boys. And on April 14th is Black Day, the singles "holiday" when people without that special someone sit around eating black noodles. I think my friends and I will celebrate with beer and tequila but maybe that's just a cultural difference.

I need to start keeping notes of what I want to write about here, because I had a bunch of awesome things I wanted to share but now I can't remember any of them. Sorry.

Came across an incredibly interesting article about the seemingly excessive studying that kids do here. check it out on Matador Abroad. I have to say...I agree with it. Even though I'm learning the ropes here more every day, I still struggle with certain things. Like, why is there "camp" during the winter and summer breaks? Why are the students still forced to come to school even after final exams have been completed? In my mind its a huge issue of quantity over quality, and in Korea - quantity means more. Study more. Work longer hours. Take more classes. Nevermind that these students are spread so thin with everything they're forced to do with the limited time they have. They hardly have any free time.

It makes me sort of sad to compare my high school life with that of my students. I remember spending weeknights at dance practices and cheering on my friends at basketball games, and weekends going on dates with boys or hanging out with my friends testing the limits of our parents' nerves and patience. There were football games, parties, and dances. Things that, in my opinion, define our youth and things that I feel like these kids are missing out on. They have no concept of these things. They literally can't even imagine it because these things don't exist in their society. High school kids partying? What's prom? Forget the fact that they (obviously) don't have football here, but they don't have any real outlet like sports for showing their school spirit. Don't get me wrong, I think studying is important and looking back, I probably should've done more of it both in high school and college. However, after seeing how things are in another corner of the world, I am incredibly grateful for having been raised in a society where the focus is not strictly on academics, but rather on creating well-rounded individuals. I was able to pursue my passion for dance, serve my community through volunteer programs, earn my own spending money by holding down a job, and even travel to Ireland with a group from my high school. The idea of a 16 year old doing all of these things is shocking to a lot of my co-workers and students here because they are so concentrated on the academics of it all that there isn't time for these things.

When we come back from a weekend or a holiday break, I always ask my students what they did the days preceding our class. I am met with 30 blank faces. One or two students will offer a meek "I slept" or "I played computer games" or the most common "I studied". Huh? That's what you did with your time away from school? I know their English isn't very good, but c'mon, they can do better than that right? Even the kids who can't recite those phrases in English will ask for help translating and that's what they say. When my peers and I were asked that same question in high school Spanish class there would be a different response from every one of us. "I went skiing with my family", "I went shopping with my friends", "I had a volleyball game". I think I would be shocked if I heard that from a student of mine.

Sometimes, especially growing up in America, we assume that our way is the best way. Traveling has definitely showed me that this isn't the case. There are things to be taken from every place, every corner of the world. Perhaps in America we should focus a little bit more on academics, although I would never advocate it to the extent that it is here. Would it be wrong to encourage a little less studying here, and a little more time spent with friends just (gasp!) having fun?

New K-Pop songs are out. Here's the latest from 2NE1 called Try to Follow Me (날 따라 해봐요 - Nal Ddara Haebwayo).

I filled out a bracket for the NCAA tournament. My friends and I joined a little pool here...we'll see how that goes. I tend to suck at these things as it is, but now I think it will be even worse since I can't just turn on ESPN and I'm not working in college athletics anymore so I'm not soaking up all that incredibly useful information for situations like these. Also, randomly, I signed up to run a 10K in April. Hm. Not sure what I was thinking with that one, but it will be a good incentive to start running again since I've sort of been slacking this past winter.

Hope everyone has a great St. Patrick's Day! My friends and I will be celebrating in Seoul this weekend at an Irish festival. Apparently there's Guinness and face painting. Sounds like an awesome combination. Later!

"I often think about the world in which I live today, of animals and plants and nature's gifts set on display. But the most amazing thing that I've seen in my time are all the different people and all their different minds and different ways. It would take a lifetime to explain." -- No Doubt

Reebs This One's For You

Hello. So, Rebecca brought it to my attention that I completely suck at keeping up with my blogging (which speaking of, Reebs, when was the last time you updated your blog??). But she has a point, and if anyone still reads this, I'm sorryyyy.

The new school year started on Tuesday. Monday was a holiday, I think it was the Korean independence day or something. All these holidays - I really have no idea what they're for, but I don't complain. Anyway, new school year started on Tuesday, and so there is a whole new batch of kids, which naturally - I never see and don't get to teach. High school in Korea has 3 grades, but since my school was new, there were only 1st and 2nd years when I arrived. Now that the new year has started, there's nearly 270 new 1st year students. This is a HUGE number because the other 2 grades have about 150 students each. I'm really disappointed I don't get to work with these new students. From what I hear they're WAY better behaved than my current students. Plus I was hoping I could reuse some lesson plans instead of having to make all new ones but no such luck.

So Tuesday after work I came home and was relaxing and minding my own business when my co-teacher Sang Jin called me. I was a little worried, because she rarely calls me outside of school, and if she does need to get ahold of me, its generally by text. About 10 of the teachers were near my subway station having "hwaeshi" which is a teacher's dinner gathering. I think it was sort of an impromptu thing. But I threw on some clothes and met up with them. OH. MY. GOD. The first day must've been rough on them because when I got to the restaurant around 8:30 I was shocked to find most of my superiors completely trashed. I mean....they were on an entirely different level than I expected anyone to be on a Tuesday night. Totally untouchable. I couldn't even begin to catch up.

One of my (new!) neighbors in the noraebang :)

Sang Jin and me after leaving our mark on the restaurant wall

What else... Ooh I no longer have to take the bus to school in the mornings, which is totally lame to be excited about, but believe me its awesome. Two teachers from my school moved into my building and one of them has a car and drives us now. Saves time, and money. How efficient. Ew. I sound old.

Also, since its a new school year and we have a bunch of new kids and all...there's new teachers! Including 2 new English teachers (and a third who I'm pretty sure worked at the school last year teaching something that was definitely NOT English because she can barely communicate with me, so I have no idea what running a classroom with her is going to be like). One of the new teachers is really soft spoken and seems really intimidated by the rowdiness of the students. I told her she better get used to it because the kid have been bad this week already and I can tell that's their "good" behavior and its only going to get worse.

I've been dancing a lot - which has been great because after being with those crazy kids all day, its soooo nice to be able to go to the studio for a few hours and dance it off. The weather is slowly getting nicer - I was even able to go for a run outside this past weekend. There's a great running/walking/biking path along the river near my apartment, and I don't feel all the judgmental eyes on me the way I do when I walk around other places.

I think tomorrow (Friday) I'm supposed to have another teacher's dinner gathering thing. Unfortunately I was only just informed of it today, and already have plans to hit the dance studio and then go out in Itaewon with everyone. People here sort of don't get the concept of preplanning - they just do everything on the fly when they feel like. Sorryyyyy but I have a life, you gotta give me some warning! Itaewon is a part of Seoul where the US Military base is, so there are lots of foreigners and most people speak English pretty well because they're used to dealing with the military. I generally try to stay away from it all, but I could use some diversity.

BIG NEWS: There is a Taco Bell coming to Seoul - in Itaewon! I almost died when I found out because there is no other fast food I have been craving more than that greasy fatty fake mexican yummy goodness. I don't know when it opens, but the sign said "Coming Soon". Life is complete.

Did everyone watch the Olympics?! Kim Yuna!! I'm sooo happy and relieved that she won gold. Poor girl has a lot of pressure on her over here. She's in every other advertisement on TV and like I mentioned before, a small country like Korea gets (in my mind) unusually proud of their celebrities who make it outside of Korea. I was definitely cheering for her. But now...people are still talking about it. She's on a million different TV specials. SBS replayed her performances over and over and over. They even played her performances with the commentaries from different stations around the world - including NBC so i was able to hear the English. Its a little overdone - a concept which Korea doesn't seem to understand, but regardless - I'm still happy and excited for her!

I won't even go into the whole hockey thing, but needless to say - that was incredibly disappointing Team USA - shape up! Also, I couldn't stop laughing during the closing ceremony when the big beaver came out, not only because it was so categorically Canadian and random, but because the commentary said "ahh and the always enjoyable giant inflatable beaver..". Whaaa? Always enjoyable? I'm pretty sure that was the first giant inflatable beaver I've ever seen, but thanks Bob Costas for your amazing commentary.

Here's the latest K-Pop song, its called "Change" by Hyuna. I learned some of the dance in class last week actually. Well the parts that can actually count as dancing anyway, which is only a little bit, but still fun.

Waiting for warm weather!

"If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home." -- James Michener