New Classrooms + A Rainy Visit to Hyangiram

Hello everybody. It is Sunday Noon here as I speak. I caught the 4th quarter of Gopher victory number two on an internet radio stream from Bowling Green, so that was pretty cool. Megan and I are going strong during our second month here. We have a few new pictures from this weekend at Hyangiram temple, which is an absolutely beautiful temple, on a mountain, facing the sea, on Dolsan Island. It was a rainy day, but a decent temperature made the hike pretty fun. We were with Jeff and the girls.

Here are the latest pictures!

I received my International Drivers Permit this week, so I am looking to get a car after my first paycheck. A decent enough used car can be had for under 1,000,000 won. In the month since we've been here, the won has plummeted compared to the dollar. It was 1,000 -> $1, now it is about 1,200 -> $1. So, this makes the car cheaper, but getting paid... not so cool. Basically we earned $200 less in the 10 days since we earned our money... Weon, Hye-gyong's brother will be helping us out on the car front. I am pretty excited to do some exploring. We also are hoping to make a trip us to Seoul in one of the coming weekends. We only live two blocks from the train station, so rail trips are easy.

This week was the first week in our own classrooms. Hopefully we can get some pictures up one we finish up getting the rooms decorated. We can also get some pictures of the students then too. The week was quite interesting for me. I don't know if the students saw a new movie or what happened, but I had three separate "F*** you" incidents. The kids don't know what it means, or how strong of a swear it is in English language. I was pretty shocked. I explained that it is NEVER ok to do in class. I can only imagine on of the 6th graders walking up to someone on vacation and say - "Hi... F(@# YOU!" - and then getting punched into oblivion. There were some other behavior issues, but I am finding some weeks are going to go like that. I did get a nice treat last Tuesday when my adult students no-showed, so I got to leave 1.5 hours early.

The coming week is Chusok, Korean Thanksgiving. Thanks to an non-optimal lunar calendar, we only get one of a potential three days off, but what can ya do? We will be having the big meal with the Kim family, so expect more pictures. I hope everyone is doing well back home! Please send more emails, IMs, anything!!