Also, I hope that any drunk friends that you may have put to bed that night appreciated it as much as mine did. That's what friends are for, after all.
As I mentioned before, we signed a contract extension with our school, which means we will be staying here until the end of January next year. We are pretty happy about our decision, as it means we now have more time to pay off debt, save money (for our fabulous post-contract extended vacation), and spend time with the friends that we've made here. For me personally, it means more time to hike this country's beautiful mountains and to study Korean. Unfortunately, it also means more time spent away from our cat - we miss him terribly, but the pictures that my brother sends us occasionally help to abate the pet-loneliness (the captions are his as well). Thanks, bro.
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| hanging out with my socks. a favorite spot. |
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| assimilation complete. |
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| also he's getting fat. |
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| another favorite spot. he prefers water fresh from the tap, because he is a feline of distinguished tastes. |
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| last one you should frame this. |
We started a new session this month with new classes - all of the middle school, 6th grade, and advanced classes were re-sorted according to the results of the students' level-up tests, so we all have new classes with a combination of new and old students. A new session is always a little hectic, what with making sure the students get their books and finishing our lesson plans, but this has added a whole new element of confusion to the mix. We had to come in about two hours early on the first day to plan for our classes, and several of us still had curveballs (like Joel and one of his co-teachers, who found out that their books were switched five minutes before class, after they'd already made lesson plans with the ones they were originally given). On a more positive note, it's been interesting to see some of our elementary school students in these new classes, and of course all of the teachers have been exchanging intel on students that we got from each other. I always knew that my teachers talked about me in school, but dang. This puts a whole lot of things from high school into perspective. Also on the (really) positive side - it turns out that I don't have to do winter intensives this month, since no students signed up for conversation classes. That means I can go back to my yoga studio and take Korean class on weekday mornings again. Hooray!
My Korean classes have been going well, too. I started Beginner 4 on Tuesday with another teacher who is from the U.K. She is pretty cool, and we get along well - we might even become friends! Yay. I know that I am learning something, at least, because I find that I understand my students (and my Korean co-teachers) more with each day that passes. I am no stellar conversationalist - I still struggle to hold even simple exchanges - but the language is slowly opening up for me, which is always really exciting. I am toying with the idea of taking a Korean language proficiency test before I go home. We'll see how things go.
Other than that, there is no major news - we might go skiing later this month, and (if the time works with my schedule) I might get to see Aung San Suu Kyi, the Lady of Burma, give a speech at Chonnam University (!!!). She is coming here to watch the Special Olympics and accept a human rights prize awarded to her in 2004. I don't know what time she is giving her speech yet, but I have my fingers crossed that it will be before work. How cool would it be to see someone who won the Nobel Peace Prize, back when it still meant something?
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