The End of the Term

Well, our fall term ended on Friday. The last day of the term is usually pretty mellow, but since our director didn't come to work at all, that meant it was even more mellow. That's right folks. It was nothing but crossword puzzles, mazes and Spongebob videos all day. It was glorious. haha.

Monday marks the beginning of Winter term. That'll go until the end of February. Winter Intensives start December 27th and last about 4 weeks. My boss officially knows that I accepted a position at another school and has agreed to release me from my Visa without any problems as long as I agree to stay through the end of the term. That means I won't get any time off between the jobs so I won't be able to travel (the school also changed our Christmas vacation so I won't be going to SE Asia like I was planning). That's disappointing, but it gives me the opportunity to send a bunch of money home in February, which is a good thing.

I'm really excited to work this last term and get out. God has really blessed me in the last few weeks. It looked like my boss wasn't going to release me from my Visa, and I might not have been able to take the new job. We were able to come to an agreement though. Plus, I got a really good schedule for this term. I don't have ANY middle school classes, and they are the students that made me REALLY hate my job. Also, I get out at 730 on Tuesday and Thursday. I'm a lot less stressed out now. I think these three months will go by pretty quickly. Then it's off to the new job. I can't wait!

Thanksgiving

Well, we had an American Thanksgiving this weekend. It was pretty great. All the US and Canadian teachers got together, along with some of our Korean friends, and had a FEAST in Hagye. We didn't have anywhere to cook a turkey. Fortunately, there are these street vendors all over Seoul who have a truck that is basically a big rotisserie cooker. We bought 3 rotisserie chickens from one of them (We actually spent all day roaming around town to find one and couldn't. Then right before dinner, one parked in front of Brad and Steph's apartment. Very Nice). Everybody brought something. It was great. Chicken, Mashed Potatoes, Asparagus, Salad, Fruit, Rice, Homemade Korean Curry, Pumpkin Pie (thank you CostCo), Flan.....we had quite the feast. We sat around all night afterwards playing cards and then most everyone went to the norae bang (singing room). I was pretty beat by then and headed home.

Overall, for my first holiday away from home, it went really well. It looks like Christmas is gonna be at Pastor Robert and Jenny's house. I'm excited :)

Internet Addiction

It's pretty amazing, but internet addiction is actually a HUGE problem in Korea. No country has more household, high-speed internet connections than Korea. I don't know that's happened here yet, but in surrounding countries, like Japan and China, people have actually died from internet gaming binges lasting several days. They don't eat, drink or sleep and freaking DIE! Here's what it's come to. This is one possible answer to the problem (thanks for the link to the article Dave.).

click me

This Past Weekend

I realized that I didn't say anything about last weekend. It was pretty fun. I went to Lotte World with people from church. For those who don't know (which is probably most of you) Lotte is the HUGE corporation that owns a little bit of everything in Korea...ie - grocery stores, departments stores, hotels, and yes, a half-indoors/half-outdoors knock-off of Disney World. haha. It was actually pretty cool. I hadn't been to an amusement park in about 4 or 5 years. We went at night so weren't there for very long, but we still were able to go on a few rides. Some highlights:

1. The Gyro-Something - One of those free fall rides that takes you up REALLY high and just drops you to the bottom.
2. Bumper Cars - Koreans generally avoid each other on bumper cars. They were scared of us seemingly violent Americans.
3. The Ball Room - Big room. Three floors. Open in the center. Full of foam balls. Air cannons on the second and third floors to shoot the balls...there were a couple all-out battles :)
4. The Magic Donkey - There's this life-sized stuffed, cartoony looking donkey on a pedestal. You put 500 Won (about 54 cents) into the slot and the donkey lifts his tail and craps out a plastic container with candy. BRILLIANT!
5. Laser Light Show - The inside part of the park is so huge that I didn't realize we were inside at first. It's pretty cool. Towards the end of the night they did a laser light show about the constellations. They used all the same effects Pink Floyd used for their shows so it was pretty cool. Plus, they were shooting off fireballs and small firworks. Yup, that's how big it was inside (oh, and JoAnn jumped every time the fireworks went off...pretty funny).

After the park we all hung out for a while, but it was just too cold to stay outside anywhere. I was supposed to go downtown to meet up with Brad and Stephanie for their birthday extravaganza but was way too tired. Of course, I ended up staying up late talking to people online anyway.

Sunday was pretty fun. It was the normal church and dinner afterwards (Korean BBQ. mmmmm), and then Lara and I got everyone to go to a coffee shop. We were there so long that we almost missed the last subway home. It was cool though. Half the table was having a deep theological conversation, and the other half was playing 20 million questions with Jeff Moses. Hopefully they all still like me after that.

So yeah, that was the weekend. Overall, very enjoyable and pretty cheap. I'll post some pictures once JoAnn and Lara send them to me.

Hmmm

I just got paid. Tomorrow I'm having Mexican food for lunch with two of my favorite people in Korea. JoAnn just introduced me to a friend of hers in SoCal who wants to show me the local climbing when I head out there. Church was great tonight. There are times when I feel down and kind of lonely, but then there are times like these, and I don't understand why I deserve to be so absolutely content with life. God is good.

Big News!

Welp, I have officially signed a contract with the new school in Apgujeong. I start there on February 25th. My current boss knows I'm leaving and seems cool with it. He went through some crazy crap firing one of the guys we work with, and even though I'm leaving, I think he appreciates that I do a good job and isn't going to try to screw me. The nice this is that if he does try to stick it to me a little bit, I have an easy out. If I leave this job before I've worked here for 6 months, I have to pay back the cost of my flight to Korea. My new boss said that if EG starts treating me poorly because I'm leaving, she'll call my current boss, give him a piece of her mind and their school will pay back my ticket so that I can leave right away without losing any money. While I really don't think it'll come anywhere close to that, but it's nice to know that If I would need to get out, I could :)

The other piece of big news is Christmas vacation. According to our contracts with EG, we get one week of summer vacation that they choose and get to choose another week at some other time during the year. Well, that is always a hassle because we need to cover classes, and nobody can vacation together. What EG has decided to do is give us a week off for Christmas instead of letting us pick a week at some other point. Now, I can go on vacation with a bunch of my coworkers which is really cool. All that said...Jeff Moses will be spending Christmas 2007 in the tropics of Vietnam! We're going to Vietnam, Cambodia and might even try to make it to Thailand or Laos. The cool thing is that if we don't get to go everywhere I'd like, I can make up for it later. I'm going to take off a week in February before I start the new job so I can travel a little more.

This whole job and vacation situation actually worked out pretty well. I had my first paid vacation almost immediately after I arrived and I'm getting my second before I leave. Essentially, I only worked for EG for 6 months and got both of my vacations for the year. Plus, I get two vacations in the upcoming year with my new school. I feel really good about all this.

...and by the way

I'm famous now. I'll be signing autographs at my next appearance. haha.

click me

I Finally Got a Fix

Despite working all Saturday afternoon, having dinner with EG people, going to a punk show in Hongdae and getting home MUCH later than planned (around 4am instead of midnight), I got up at 9am and went hiking with Lara. It was great. It took us a little longer than we planned to find the trail head, but once we were there, we had a great time.

The leaves are starting to lose their color a little, but the view was great. We hiked partway up Dobong Mountain. Lara had to get to church early for music practice. We were taking a break and realized there wasn't going to be enough time to reach the summit and still hadn't had a good view. Then, I saw a big rock outcropping off the trail to our right.

"Let's get on top of that." -Me
"Okay. Lead the way, mountain man." -Lara

We had to walk around a bit and do a little scrambling, but we made it, and it was really cool. Plus, we got away from the millions of Koreans that were clogging up the trail.

I felt much better about life in general right at this moment :)

A great view from the rock (ignore the smog).

I guess Lara's Korean half just couldn't resist.

Sweet

We got a new teacher today. He and his wife are awesome. Enough said.

They're Calling Me

This weekend, no matter what, I'm hiking. I can't begin to describe it. I really like living in the city. I've always wanted to live in the city, but something happened to me in those 3 years in the woods. I don't feel "even" if I'm not enjoying Creation. The woods, the cliffs, the mountains, I need them.

I've never been one for day hiking. It doesn't have the same feel, especially when all of the overlooks are of Seoul, but I'll take what I can get at this point. I started losing touch with my inner-woodsman and now he's forcing himself back to the surface. I wish I could build a fire somewhere or live out of my backpack for a few days, but I'll settle for half a day on the mountainside.