Today is Children's day, which is a holiday in Korea. It's nice to be sitting around when I'd usually be working or sitting in a classroom. Lately I've been busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. Last week was the end of the month, so I had the usual monthly tests to write and correct. Also, I had to write Korean midterms at school, which I guess aren't really that important, but I still feel like I want to do well.
Next week should be back to normal. Especially since there are two holidays this week. Like I said, today is Children's day and Thursday is Buddha's Birthday or something like that. It's actually also Parent's day on Thursday they fall on the same day this year. Buddha's birthday goes by the lunar calendar, while parent's day goes by the solar. Two days off this week!!
Still no confirmed SARS cases in Korea. Every now and then you hear about a person that might have it, but so far those have turned out to be something else. It's a little surprising given the proximity to China and the fact that there are hundreds of Korean students studying in China that have recently returned from Beijing because they closed schools there to try to stop/slow the disease from spreading.
I'm enjoying being back in school. I really feel like I'm learning more this term. Only two of the other students in the class speak English so when I'm talking to another classmate it has to be in Korean. Kind of difficult when you have to use words that you both know. So, it can be a little annoying at times because I usually like to bail out into English as most people that I talk to speak English better than I do Korean. Although it is interesting speaking to a girl from Russia or a guy from Japan in Korean. As for the midterms, ?I think they went well. I need at least 60% on all the tests(listening, speaking, reading, and writing) in order to pass. I tell myself that they aren't important because my ultimate goal is only to improve. But, I was thinking that I might take another course in the fall and I wouldn't want to be back in level 2 again when I'd learn a lot more by moving up. Either way I still want to do well cause my boss and others will ask me how my grades were and I want them to believe that I'm intellegent. Whether it's true or not.
Many of you might be surprised to hear that I didn't drink in April. What?!! Yeah it's true. My brother and I both did (or perhaps didn't is a better word). Although it was easy for me because when you get up at 7am and are out of the house until 10pm you only have to find something else to do on the weekends. We saw a few movies and caught up on some house work. My girlfriend got a little bored with me this month, but she didn't complain to loudly. The 3 of us went and saw a movie called Taxi 3 last week. I didn't know anything about it except that my girlfriend asked me if I wanted to go see it. I asked what it was about but she said the only thing she knew was that Stallone was in it. I thought, well, then it can't be terrible so I stopped at the theatre on my way home from school Friday afternoon and bought the tickets. So later I looked on the Internet and found that the movie was in French (with Korean subtitles). Oops! Not the end of the world because my brother and I took our schooling in French. I understood most of it and the parts where I didn't, I was reading the subtitles, which of course I don't always understand and they go by too fast. Overall it was an interesting experience, but I think that next time I'll check out a movie before I buy the tickets.
We came off our month of no drinking in style this weekend. Friday night, I went back to the Adventure Korea Pub where I usually frequent. If you live here, check out the website cause they organize trips most weekends to places all around Korea (www.adventurekorea.com). It's also an authentic western style pub. Most places think that in order to make a 'western' bar they need to decorate like the "old west" with guns on the wall, cowboy hats, etc. They also have pool tournaments twice a week or whenever there are enough people there. Someone got a pool tournament started Friday night at about 1am and even though I had to stick around until 4am for the tournament to finish, winning 40,000 (~$50) paid for my night and cab fare both ways. People were a little surprised to see us back there after a 5 week absence.
Saturday, my buddy Bret came over (actually it's noon Monday and he's still sleeping on my couch) and we sat around watching movies and drinking. We started at about four and planned to stick around Ilsan but at about 1am we jumped into a cab and went to Itaewon. We made it back at about 6:30am. So I was pretty wiped out yesterday. My brother and I had planned to go out again Sunday night, but after I taught my Sunday classes and went out to dinner with my girlfriend for some Samgyeopsal and a couple bottles of soju, all I wanted to do was go to bed. So I got a good nights sleep and it'll be back to the grind tomorrow morning. I gotta run, send me some email and let me know how you're doing.
Brent Teacher
