Home Sweet Home

Korea feels a little more like home thanks to this website.

Ooooooh, E - A - G - L - E - S EAGLES!!

One...Two...Three...

Last night was the first time since I've been in Seoul that I could actually see stars in the sky. It was beautiful. After a month and a half without stars, you really appreciate them. Also, it was the first time in my life that I could count every visible star in the sky. There were three.

Vacation

So we found out today that we have off work from Saturday September 22 - Thursday September 27th. It's the biggest Korean holiday of the year. Korean Thanksgiving. It's kinda lame that we have to come back just to work a Friday. I'm sure we'll do a lot of teaching that day ;) If only they'd give us that day off too. Then we'd have 9 days off instead of 6. Anyway, we decided we need to travel. We're gonna try to head down to South-East Asia. We'd like to spend a few days in Vietnam and Cambodia. Unfortunately, it might be hard to get tickets since it's the biggest holiday of the year. If we can't get a flight, we're gonna bum around the Korean countryside. I'm looking forward to it. Should be a pretty good time.

At Last!!

So I spent the last month and a half constantly nagging my boss to make the call so I could get my own internet connection and phone line at my apartment. He's been really busy and has not had time to do it so I've been hooking onto whatever unreliable wireless connection I could find. Then, today I received a bill in the mail for my July phone/internet service. Perplexed, I went to my boss. It turns out that the last teacher here never had them disconnected. I've had internet and a phone line the whole time I've lived here. He called the company and got my username/password for the internet and my home phone number, and now I'm online. I thanked him for the phone call and assured him that I wouldn't be paying for July's service. We agreed, and now I finally have these last two amenities for my apartment :)

The Final Countdown

Press play on the video below before you start reading.....



That's right folks. It's Monday night. Tomorrow is the last day of summer intensives. No longer will we be forced to work 50 hours a week. We'll be back to just afternoons. 5-7 classes a day instead of 10. Thank God. The month is almost over. IT'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN!!!

....and you'd better believe we've all been singing this song for the last few days because nothing expresses true, raw emotion like bad 80's hair metal. yee haw!

My New Home Away From My Home Away From Home

And here it is. The place I will be spending much of my free time. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you O2 World







Oh, and I almost forgot to mention...They have the world's largest indoor ice climbing wall (certified by The Guinness Book of World Records).

Donald Miller: Genius at Large

I just finished reading "Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance: Finding God on the Open Road." It's hard to sleep after finishing something that makes my mind swirl like this. If you want to know what it is I believe the Christian faith should be, read "Searching for God Knows What." If you want to know what I want out of life, read the book mentioned earlier (both by Donald Miller). Below are my two favorite passages from "Prayer and the Art..." The first is long (I apologize, but I just couldn't find any part in this section to cut out), and the second is much shorter:

"Poppycock religion is America's new faith. It is easy. It is quick. It allows a person to feel spiritual, seem intellectual, have a faith to follow, and have something interesting to talk about over coffee. Poppycock is the quick-fix diet of the spiritual industry. It sells. It rarely threatens or confronts the seeker, allowing each to forge his own individual 'religion.' The poppycock believer changes the rules as he goes. If he misses a basket, he will say that a missed basket is still worth two points. The poppycock believer does not serve his god, rather his god serves him. He has everything to gain and nothing to lose.
But the Christian faith is very different. God is both the creator and the source of the commands by which humans should live. God gives man a choice; He can be his own god, or he can serve and follow the one true God.
It is Christianity, I believe, that truly faces the facts of reality. The Christian does not try to create his or her own reality. Our search for the truth leads us to Christ. Faith costs something (as all things of worth do) and obedience is hard, but God has poured out His love for us and given us the grace that empowers us to obey.
Here's the rub. I believe everything I have just written. Living it out in the heat of every decision is another matter.
It is the occupation of a Christian to glorify God. The sunrise glorifies God; it is beautiful and God made it. The sunset and the starry night do the same. But i am unshaven, unkempt, and carry a peculiar odor. I am certain that it is not my beautiful looks which glorify God, it is my actions. And all I have to do is let Him work through me, right? Easier said than done. The multitude of formulas (for living the Christian life with success) proposed by Christian writers, preachers, conference speakers, and televangelists simply confuse me. They have different ideas about how it is done, offering promises of fulfillment and joy based on three easy steps, four points of action, or the five smooth stones that David threw. My mind swims.
It would be easier if God would have given us a point A and a point B. It would be easier if He were to make it clear. But He hasn't.
Many of us associate the Christian faith with a list of do's and don'ts. And there are do's and don'ts, to be sure. But if the Christian life is to be oriented in relationship, why is there so much talk of formula? Could it be that the reason we are more interested in formula than relationship is that we would like to deal with our need for religion without dealing with the complications of relationship? That even though we have chosen the Christian faith instead of 'poppycock religion,' we ultimately want the same thing as the pagan? And what is that? Easy answers, comfortable sentiments, beliefs that make us feel good. So we go through the motions. We go to our churches, we read our self-help books, we watch our religious television, and we check each item off our to-do list as if we were doing work for pay. One thing I am sure of. This is not the kind of real-life faith I'm looking for." (pages 272-3)

Let me repeat that last part...THIS IS NOT THE KIND OF REAL-LIFE FAITH I'M LOOKING FOR. This second passage is much shorter and simpler:

[written while watching the sun rise in the mountains of Oregon] "Had these mountains eyes, they would wake to find two strangers in their fences, standing in admiration as a breathing red pours its tinge upon earth's shore. These mountains, which have seen untold suns rise, long to thunder praise but stand reverent, silent so that man's weak praise should be given God's full attention." (page 289)

I know not everyone is gonna get, or appreciate, this post. It's just where I'm at and what's been going on with me the last few days. I think these realizations are exciting.

I could never live in Seattle

Anybody remember when it rained nonstop for three and a half days last summer? It's been doing that here in Seoul. Everything is overflowing. It kinda sucks. I mean, I get done work and wanna go outside and walk around or use my slackline. Instead, I'm holed up in my apartment. It's kinda funny though. Nobody in Korea wears raingear. It's just a constant parade of umbrellas. People look at me really funny when I'm walking around with nothing but my rain jacket to keep me dry (well, not nothing but my rain jacket....I'd probably look at me a little funny then too...funny and impressed of course ;-) ).

Back to the Grind

The rest of vacation went well. It was pretty chill. The day after the rafting/bungee jumping trip, I pretty much just sat around and read. Tuesday, I had to go downtown to Anguk to pick up my Alien Registration Card. That makes it official. I live here now. Then, I went and had a quick Changdeokgung Palace. I didn't take the tour because it started late, but I did get a few pics of the outside.



Next, I headed over to Hongdae. That's a small college area in Seoul. It's a pretty cool, artsy place with, from what I hear, a decent punk rock scene. I also managed to find a cheap acoustic guitar so I finally feel like a complete person again. Plus, I saw some businesses with pretty great names ;-)



Now, it's back to the grind. We're still teaching summer intensives. Last week, we only had three days. That was nice. Today, I got out early because students are taking placement tests to see how much they're learning. Colin and I went back to my place to hang out for a while. We watched a few episodes of the office and then I put in my favorite climbing video. After the slacklining section, we had to go out. We went down to one of the local parks and set up my slackline. I was worried we'd get in trouble for tying into the trees, but it was the opposite; it was instant popularity. Some of the locals even tried it out. Overall, it was a good time. Something clicked too. I was able to walk back and forth on the line and even did a few spins and jump starts. Not too shabby.