Here I am once again in all my glory. Yes I am still alive, yes I'm aware that's it's been awhile, and yes there have been developments in my life. I'll do my best to relay them all to you as best as I can remember. What can I say, time flies when you're having fun.
Although what does that really mean anyway. I mean time is always constant unless you travel around in space (I don't) so the expression should be something like, "time seems to fly when you're having fun." Ok, everybody take note of that and we'll get that expression changed.
But now I'm getting off topic. I have now completed 10.5 months of my year contract, hurray for me! Unfortunately I have sad news or possibly good news depending on your persepective. I am not coming home in 6 weeks. My brother is booked on a flight to join me in here in 4 days. He's going to study for the LSAT and make a little money to pay for his first year of Law school. I'm gonna stick around till summer and then reevaluate.
As you could guess, I'm pretty stoked about my bro coming it will be nice having some family around for the holidays. Also, I haven't seen any family or friends in almost a year. Save the one friend in Donghae that I have met up with a grand total of 4 times in the last 8 months, Keith. We met up a couple weeks ago and hit the bars in and around Seoul. I'd go into detail but the night is kind of a blur. It started out in Itaewon and ended up in Hongdae that much I can tell you for sure.
Recently I haven't gone into Seoul very often. Except in the mornings for the class that I was taking, which is now offically over! I'm a little disappointed that I still don't speak Korean very well, but I have improved a lot. Even being as busy as I was I stillI finished with an average of over 90%. I'm pretty good at reading and writing but I have to work at listening and speaking. I even wrote a speech (with grammar help from my little Korean sweetie) and then read it in front of all the first level students. One person from each class had to do it. I volunteered cause I didn't always do my homework, and was late fairly often towards the end. I wanted to get a high participation grade. I'm not sure why I wanted a high grade cause it really doesn't matter, but I figured that since I was doing it I might as well try to get as high a grade as possible.
Doing the speech was an experience. I don't usually get nervous about public speaking, but this time I sure did. I didn't have enough time (or I was too lazy) to memorize the speech. So when I tried to improvise a little, up on the stage in front of 200 or so people, I messed up. Then, I got nervous and my hands started quivering. I finally just gave up and read the speech. Head down and reading. My students in the speech class I teach would have loved to see it. It probably wasn't as terrible as it seemed cause it's not like people were paying close attention. I was a little pissed about it, although now I don't care.
Speaking of my little Korean sweetie, yes I'm still seeing her. Nothing really serious, we hang out and have fun together. So no, I don't have any plans to get married and live out my days in Korea. For those of you asking for photos, we took some of us the other day. I'll put up on my site eventually but I've only got about 30 pictures on my camera so it'll probably be awhile till I get around to it.
I went to Lotte World with two other teachers and three students a couple weeks ago. Lotte World is the biggest indoor amusement park in the world. There's another half of it outside, so it's pretty big. It's not Disney World but then I wouldn't really remember cause the last time I was there was 1984. We walked around, went on some rides, and then to a folk museum. There I learned more about Korean history. It's funny how it seems I know more about Korean history than Canadian history these days. It was fun but a little draining to be walking around all day. I took some pictures but those will also be awhile getting uploaded.
I'll say one thing about hanging out with students. You sure attract a lot of attention when you're a couple of white guys having a fluent conversation with 11 year old Korean kids. There were some girls that seemed to be following us around for awhile. I'll have to remember that next time I'm looking to meet girls.
So that's about all the main events that have transpired over the last month. Soo came to my area yesterday and we went bar hopping in Ilsan. I hadn't seen him since the Korean wedding we went to. He's been busy studying and spent some time in the hospital after getting hit by a car one night. He didn't go into detail about that except to say that he was jaywalking. He had a hairline fracture in his leg which laid him up for awhile. It was good to see him.
So now I'm sitting in the PC bang on a Saturday night. I'd like to go do something but I'm feeling a little lazy. My little sweetie is in Seoul with friends and Bret went off to Suwon for the weekend. I found a new bar not too far from my place that is filled with mostly foreigners. They have a pool tournament every Monday and Saturday so I'm considering going, but I'm not too keen on going alone. I'd like to play in the tournment cause the competition isn't too tough. I won the eight-ball tounament last week Monday and then the nine-ball tournament last Saturday. Prize money both times was about $30 and a pitcher of beer. Not too bad for a 3 dollar entry fee. Or maybe I'll just rent a couple movies and veg on the couch for the night.
Merry Christmas to all. I never got the Christmas cards in the mail so I guess I'll be sending emails. Maybe I'll throw together a short video, we'll see how the time goes. With school over now, I have a ton of free time, so I'll update my site more often than once a month. Keep up with the email. I miss you all.
Brent Teacher
