I guess I'm actually well past the commencement of my second year here in Korea, but this week I moved to a new apartment and so it sort of feels as if I'm starting a new life here. Rob and I decided that having more privacy would be worthwhile, plus he wanted to make his commute a little easier, so last weekend we moved out. He is living in Apgujeong, which is the high fashion neighborhood, and I have moved to an apartment just around the corner from our school.

The apartment is really great. It's a one-room studio but there is a small "balcony" with a big screen door, and I have a great view. I am on the fifth floor and my building is at the top of a hill, so I can see all of the surrounding buildings very well. Though this apartment is smaller than the room I had when I lived with Rob, I have a lot of natural light (which my old place didn't have) and cable TV! Yes, cable! The guy who lived for almost two years in England without a TV now has cable. Hey, it came with the apartment, okay? But I have to admit that I do find myself addicted a bit. I have about 75 channels and most are in Korean, of course, but I do watch quite a bit of sports. What's nice is that there is a Korean pitcher on the Red Sox now so they show a lot of their games live.

I would have had to move into this place even if I decided not to stay in Korea for another year, but even though it looked like I wasn't going to sign my new contract, I decided that I would. For a few days I was really "down" on Korea and was feeling a bit homesick. All of it culminated in a particularly terrible weekend and I was really sure it was time for me to go. But I thought it over and realized that I like Korea quite a bit and want to stay here until next summer. In the end, TPR offered me a very good contract and now I have this great apartment, so I am excited about the next year.

Tomorrow I am going back to my Korean classes. I took three months off and will probably be a bit rusty, but I did some studying today and realized that I remember a lot more vocabulary than I expected to. I just hope I don't have the same teacher as I did in May. That would be a disaster. I'm not looking forward to waking up at 8:30am but at least it will be nice to feel like I'm doing something other than just teaching and grading papers.

Speaking of which... August was considerably less painful than July in the grading papers department. Which probably was why I ended up signing the contract, because I realized that not EVERY month would be as bad as July was. It helped that I had fewer students, but I also assigned two fewer essays for homework. September should be rather slow (so far it seems as if I'll have about 50% of the number of students I did in August) and October will be very, very quiet, I suspect.

Which doesn't mean I won't be busy, though. On September 8 I am taking the essay portion of the GRE. I had better do well, since that is what I teach! Then on October 25 I take the math and verbal parts. The math should be cake but the verbal concerns me because my vocabulary ain't so good. I also need to start planning on which schools to apply to and writing applications and all that.

Outside of my life, the big news is that Rob got engaged. A number of us went to a posh jazz club called Once in a Blue Moon a few weeks ago, and he and his girlfriend (Kelly) arrived and she flashed us the ring. Seeing as how they had only been dating for about ten weeks, everyone was shocked, needless to say. Rob had mentioned to me that he was considering it but I thought he meant "down the road" a bit. They are planning on getting married in March in Guam, and Rob asked me to be an usher, which was really nice of him.

Needless to say, this sparked off a number of "when are you and Vivi getting married?" questions but that's not in the plans for us anytime soon. So don't even ask. Recently we passed our 300 day anniversary and are quickly bearing down on one year. I am trying to get her to go to Taiwan with me for a few days in September (I am going to visit my friend Joe, who visited me in Seoul last summer) but we'll see.

The end of August brought about the end of The Princeton Review's summer program. I can't believe how quickly it went!! It seems like just yesterday that the teachers were arriving, and now all but a few of them are gone. I didn't really have any involvement in the program but I guess I'm kind of sad that it is over.

I'm NOT, however, sad that the summer weather is almost over. The past few nights have been decidedly "cool" and I know that soon the days will be, too. Hence my upbeat outlook on another year in Korea...