Long time no speak. It's Wednesday, the middle of the afternoon, and I'm sitting around the PC Bang cause I don't start work till 3:40. Things are a lot more relaxing now that the Intensive session is over at my school.
I haven't been up to anything too exciting lately. At least nothing that is suitable for this site...heh heh. I'm still in the habit of getting up early so I'm getting tired at around Midnight and popping awake at 7am expecting to go to work. The good thing is that I can tell myself to go back to sleep and I figure I'll be back int he habit of sleeping in again sometime soon.
Last Friday my boss took us out for a farewell party for two teachers that are leaving. They came to Korea the same day I did but they only signed a 7 month contract. Therefore, I'll take this time to send a farewell out to Rene and Mel. It was good working with you guys and when/if I end up in Toronto we'll have to get together and talk about the "good ol' days" back in Korea.
There are two new teachers coming to replace them soon. One will be here before the weekend and the other is coming in about a month (I think). Since the Intensive session is over, they've changed most of my classes around. So now I'm teaching 6 classes everyday and I have to memorize a bunch of new students' names. It's not too bad though cause my classes look pretty good. I hear that my school has about 350 students now so the boss should be smiling more often. I even got a small raise last month. Small but it's nice cause, seeing as I'm under contract, he certainly didn't have to.
I'm hoping that I'll take this extra free time to spend more time studing the Korean language. As of tomorrow, I'll have been here for 7 months and I'm still struggling along. Seven months means only 5 more to go. I guess that's a good thing. Although, I'm still in no hurry to rush home. I'm enjoying myself and the more language I learn, the more I seem to enjoy myself. You get a little homesick for family and friends but I figure that if I were to move away for a job in Canada it'd be basically the same thing.
Lately, I've been hanging out with Koreans a lot. I find it interesting that even though the culture here is different, their human nature is basically the same. Koreans I meet, male and female, behave basically the same as back home. Whether they're fretting over a girl/guy or complaing about their jobs, friends, etc.
I'm still spending my weekdays in Ilsan and heading into Seoul on Saturdays to meet my language exchange partner and then paint the town red. On Saturday, I made the 1.5 hour trip into Seoul to Coex Mall to watch a movie, "About a Boy". Not bad, but not the typical movie that I usually go see. For the first time in many weeks I didn't make it into Hongdae. I wonder if anybody missed me. Maybe the owner of Beaver's Wings, where I usually go. He'd miss me since I usually help him put a pretty good dent in his monthly mortgage payment...kidding(maybe).
Other than that, the weekends recently have been relatively boring. When you're used to getting up at 7am it's hard to stay out all night. So, I usually end up taking a cab home earlier than usual. I went out on a blind date with a Korean girl a couple weeks ago but that didn't turn out all that great. Other than that, I've been out with one Korean girl a few times recently. She's pretty cool but I won't go into detail about her until I see how it goes.
Now, I suppose I'd better be off to work. I've got some marking to do and since it's the beginning of a new term things are rather hectic. I'm teaching out of some new books this month so I need to do a little more preparing than usual.
I miss you all and don't forget to keep up with the email.
Brent
