Country Living

Now that four months have flown by, I've gotten well into the habit of things. By habit, however, in no way do I mean teaching M-F, 9-5, and then relaxing at home on the weekends. The structure of my weeks (and weekends) has become rather "fast-paced," ironically enough, given that I work in a town of less than ten-thousand people.

My students are magnificent, and it's great to be a teacher when the students are highly motivated to learn. Earlier this week I taught a lesson on economics to my third grade, which consisted of students having to use several phrases such as, "How much is that...", "What do you want?", to name but a few. One student in particular - who I'm sure will be a very successful financier in the future - was highly engaged in every sense of the word. The class ended with him bombarding me with questions regarding place values, which of course was due to his great interest in capital.

"What's after a hundred?" he would ask.

"Thousands."

"And after that?"

"Ten Thousands.

When I got to quadrillions I figured he would stop asking, but he was still curious! What a kid.

Aside from teaching I've been doing quite a bit of traveling. October was a busy month, hence the lack of blogging, which I feel terrible about. On October 9th I went all the way down to Gyeongju for the first of two Fulbright conferences. It was nice to get out of Hwacheon for a time and see my fellow ETAs, who all expressed similar concerns about their schools and homestay situations. To get to the bare bones, it's safe to say that once you get past the "mystique" of living and traveling in a foreign country, it sure can present itself as quite a challenge. In my case, because I am no exception, I've had to work past not speaking the language and not being able to communicate all that well with my homestay family, as well as the school staff. I consider myself rather lucky, however, that my homestay speaks even a dose of English.

The week following the conference, I went to Donghae and Samcheok, both located on the East Coast where I got to see the ocean once again. The original plan was to take a ferry to Ulleung-do, a tiny island territory from which you can see Dokdo, the pile of rocks that has been the reason for many disputes between Korean and Japan. Due to complications with our transportation, however, we ended up visiting a quaint little village in Donghae, and a sculpture park in Samcheok with a very interesting theme.

On Saturday the 24th, I attended the "Grand Mint Music Festival," an indie music festival in Seoul boasting an impressive lineup of Korean as well as international performers. Originally I had planned on going hiking at a nearby mountain, until a friend of mine informed me that the Korean "Radiohead" would be performing. In disbelief, I conducted a bit of research only to discover that they did in fact sound like the Korean Radiohead. The festival was great, but short, as is every weekend. The feeling of being in such a large city barely sinks in before I have to head back north to my small town.

Every week since the concert I've made my way down to Seoul, including to celebrate Halloween, which was a blahst!!!! A few of the ETAs and I got together and had a Halloween party, complete with pumpkin carving and creepy crawlers. Before I continue, I must introduce the concept of a DVD Room. A DVD Room can basically be called a movie theater large enough for 4 or 5 people. It can be compared to the average theater room in the US. Naturally, on Halloween night, I recommended that we watch "Drag Me to Hell" at a local DVD ROOM. In Sam Raimi's horror films, he has been known to successfully inject his viewers with heavy doses of fear through the use of terrifying story lines not to mention impeccable cinematic techniques.

This past weekend I traveled to Daegu for my friend's birthday. Daegu is Korea's third largest city, and notably so, as it boasts many similarities to that of Seoul and Busan. I took the KTX, Korea's famous speed-rail system, for the first time. Despite the speedy travel, the ride down to Daegu was surprisingly smooth. One of the things that I found in Daegu, which I also find in Seoul and Busan, were numerous underground shops that seem to last for miles. One could spend an entire day simply wandering underground, and find everything he or she needed.

That's all for now, but I will update soon!