No, I am NOT 28 years old!

Koreans measure age differently than we do in the west. I knew part of the system but not the whole picture. When you are born in Korea, you are one year old. They count everything from conception (even though that's only 9 months) so that means when I arrived, I was 26 back home but 27 here. The other part that I didn't know about is that everyone becomes a year older on New years day so even though I won't be 27 back home until April 21st of this year, I just turned 28 here in Korea. Another kind of fun example...my niece, Olivia, was born 12 days ago on December 20th. In the US, she is 12 days old, but in Korea, she's 2 YEARS old. On December 20th, she was 1 year old, and now it's new years so she's a year older.

It's kind of crazy. I'm not a big fan of it. haha. Students always ask what your Korean age is, and now I have to tell them I'm 28. When I leave, I'll be 29. I definitely can't stay another year after my next contract because then I'll be 30 in Korea when I'm only 28! I'm not ready for that ;)

The Long Christmas Post

It has been a busy 3 days. Sunday was the Seoul Grace Church (the church that sponsors the English Ministry I go to) Choir Festival. Our EM did a little rendition of Elvis' "Blue Christmas" and no, I will not be posting a video of it. Haha. We had a fun time though. Some of the choirs were really good. In the end, we didn't win any of the trophies, but we did get some nice soap as a participation gift :p

Yulia, Me and Felix at the Choir Festival

Dressed for Success (2 out of 3 of us don't normally look like this)

JoAnn and Lara REEEALLY excited about our soap prize

Nastya REEEALLY confused about our soap prize

Monday, Christmas Eve, I woke up early and headed downtown to do some Christmas shopping. Then I met Nastya in Noksapyeong for lunch. She's Korean-Russian and is in the country for university. I found out she'd never had Mexican food so we remedied that right away.

I didn't buy anything here. Haha.

Nastya's first ever taco!

After lunch, I worked. It was kind of lame because we didn't really accomplish anything. I gave a few tests and watched The Charlie Brown Christmas Special in all of my classes. None of my students had ever seen it so I figured it'd be a good excuse to not actually do any work on Christmas Eve. I finished at 11 and headed to Nick and Ily's apartment for our EG Christmas party. It was a good time. We did a gift exchange and had a good mix of Americans, Canadians and Koreans.

I realized I haven't posted many pictures of the people I work with so I thought I'd put up a few. Now, you can finally see all the SUPER MATURE teachers at EG International School of Language.

Brad - The Picture of Maturity

Steph and Her Man

Colin - Working Hard As Usual

Me and Nick in our gay couple, Christmas sweaters

Will - Pictures from the office just can't show how cool he is.

Christmas was fun. I got up early (yes, Dad. 9am IS early for me) and headed down to Itaewon to meet friends from church. We went to Suji's Tokyo Cafe, which is an amazing, American-style breakfast joint. I had a huge omelet with potato, onion, bacon and cheese. That's not something you come by too often here in Seoul. Then we went back to Pastor Robert and Jenny's house. We hung out all day, watched a movie, had a white elephant exchange and played some games. It was a good time.

Felix, Tae and Yulia at brunch

Zoya, Lara, Pastor Robert, Jenny, JoAnn and Moses just before the gift exchange

All in all, my first Christmas away from home was good. I'm blessed to have so many great people to hang out with.

Relief

Two very good things. I have a new Passport (I still need to get a new E-2 Visa stamped on it), and my boss gave me my official release letter. That means he can't decide to screw me over at the last minute. I can't start at my new job unless he releases EG's sponsorship of my current Visa to the new school. He's given me the paperwork so I don't have to worry about it anymore. Very nice.

Annie

This weekend was definitely different. On Saturday I met friends from church for dinner, and then we went to see a show. No, not the normal punk show in Hongdae. We went to the Sejeong Center for the Performing Arts (King Sejeong is kind of a big deal in Korea. Everything is named after him) to see a Musical. "Annie" to be more specific. It was actually really cool. They did a great job. Everything was in Korean (Sorry Alice. They didn't sing "It's a hard knock Rife." haha), but each seat had a little screen on the back with English subtitles so I was able to understand what was going. While "Annie" is quite possibly the cheesiest story I've ever heard in my life, it was fun. After the musical we checked out some of the local Christmas lights and rounded out the night by going to Kyobo Bookstore. It was definitely a good time.

(Everyone At Dinner)

(Killing time before the show. Lara acting like....Lara)

(Crystal, JoAnn and Me by the Sejeong Center's Christmas tree)

(A bunch of us by the lights at Chunggye-Chun)

Hopefully Back to Normal

It's been a rough week and a half. All of last week I was battling a chest cold. There was a show in Hongdae I'd been looking forward to for over a month, but I was just too sick to go. On Monday, I finally felt like I was starting to get over the sickness, which was a huge relief. I hate being sick. I turn into a complete baby. Then on Tuesday I woke up and felt kind of queezy. Just the thought of eating kind of turned my stomach. I went to work but "got sick" before my first class. I went home and spent all day curled up in bed watching CSI cursing my stomach. I think it was a mild case of food poisoning. I feel completely better today. I can still feel the cold lingering a little, but I was able to eat for the first time in about 40 hours so that was nice.

Wonderful Monotony

Ya know, you move to a foreign country and expect everything to be an adventure. The truth is, I have this undeniable tendency to get into a monotonous routine. I try to wake up early. I go to the gym. I make lunch, watch some tv and then head to work. I teach. I come home, read, watch tv, talk to people online, maybe hang out with some other teachers and head to bed....then, I repeat. Sometimes I mix up the order a bit. Every now and then I throw something extra into the weekday mix....breakfast with Pastor Robert....lunch with Lara or JoAnn....but it's mostly the same. On the weekends, I usually try to get a taco or a real burger, hang out with those girls from Yonsei, check out some punk rock bands and go to church on Sunday.

Don't get me wrong. Life over here is good, and sometimes I get to do really cool stuff I'd never be able to do in the States. The funny thing is that I've gotten used to my schedule. I don't always feel like I'm living in a foreign country anymore (though there are definitely moments I wish everyone spoke English). I've heard 6 months is the turning point for most people. Either they start counting down the days until they're heading home or they start to feel like they have a home/life where they are. I've been here for 5 months, and while I know I could never live in Korea for my whole life, I'm really content with my life here for the time being. I have 15 months left until I'm planning to leave my job and the country. I'm really looking forward to this next year and a half.

Oh, and it's snowing in Seoul right now. That's kinda cool :)

Sometimes I'm an Idiot

Yesterday morning I visited the USA.....in a legal sense. That's right folks, for the first time in almost five months, these feet stepped on sovereign US soil. This guy went to the US Embassy in Seoul. Why you ask? Was it a pleasure trip? Nope. Contrary to what I thought, I did NOT forget my backpack at Brad and Steph's house. I forgot it in a taxi. What was in said backpack? My friggin' passport! Yup. I'm an idiot. Luckily, it's easy for me to get a new one (don't worry Mom and Dad - no lecture necessary). My new passport will be here December 18th. Unfortunately, I had to waste almost 100 bucks to replace it!

I try to see the bright side of everything though. This situation proved that my new friends from church really do care about me. Everyone was quick to help me figure out if I could recover my bag. When that wasn't an option, and I knew I had to replace it, a good friend offered to loan me the money (without me asking) so that I didn't have to wait a week until I got my paycheck.....that's right folks. Always try to find that bright side.

On the not so bright side, I'm getting sick.....and I'm a BABY when I'm sick.