Snowboarding and enjoying Korea

Things have been really really good since my last post. The past month has FLOWN by and I have really been enjoying myself! Teaching continues to be a hilarious joke of a job.. i have taught a total of ZERO days the past 3+ weeks. One week the kids studied for finals.. I watched TV shows. The next week the kids took there finals.. I watched TV shows AND left school at noon every day. And the following two weeks we watched the Lord of the Rings for class! This job is not bad at all.

So the weeks have flown by with little to no work, and then the weekends have been great partying in Suwon and Seoul. There's a really great group of people here and we have all been really enjoying ourselves.

Last weekend I went snowboarding with Wolfish which was pretty sweet. We kinda hopped on this organized trip so we were able to use their discounts at the resort. We got to hit the mountain all day Saturday and Sunday morning and it was just a great time. Everything worked out really well and I hope to be able to go at least one more time this winter.

Now Dori, who was supposed to have arrived here yesterday, is still sitting at the airport waiting to be able to board her flight. At this point, I think her flight is supposed to take off at at like 430AM (when she was scheduled to leave at 1240 PM). That would have her arrive here Thursday morning.. or two days later what was planned. The stupid blizzard over the NE really messed things up.

And I just got word that for whatever reason my winter break starts a day early and i do not have school tomorrow. I was planning on taking a sick day to hang out with Dori anyway but I guess its nice that i dont have to pretend to be sick. It definitely feels like the day before winter break on the office with everyone running around trying to tie up any loose ends before the break. Its exciting despite the crummy mood im in due to all of the ridiculousness surrounding Dori's flight.

I can't wait for Dori's flight to actually take off.. then i can start to get excited for new years and the Badger bowl game and my trip to Cambodia and Thailand!!

I guess thats all for now.. Korea is really good. I am very happy here and hopefully Dori will get here soon!!

Thanksgiving and 'on the brink of war'

Here's just an update of my past week and a half (or so). So last week, as I am sure that you know, N Korea fired at S Korea which was the first such attack since the Korean war ended.. I was definitely a bit scared that I was about to be in the middle of WW3.. I read every article that I could find about it.. some making me feel better and some making me feel worse. Now that things have cooled down a bit (i think/hope) i can say that i will never trust an article from CNN anymore and will only be reading BBC for news. CNN posted article after article of how the Koreas were 'on the brink of war' and how war was 'imminent' and how the US and S Korea going through with their training exercises was surely to start a war.. well the training exercises came and past and still no war! The BBC maintained a much more level headed approach to the whole thing and wasnt exaggerating anything or trying to make the issue into anything that it wasnt. So anyway, we seem to be safe.. at least for now. I mean the whole time i was never afraid for my personal safety.. i was just afraid that if something went down i would have to leave prematurely which i did not want.. especially with Dori and my's trip to SE asia less than 1 month away!! If i had to leave korea before that i would have been so pissed.

But anyway.. so last weekend me and a bunch of friends got together to celebrate thanksgiving. It was really really nice. We all met up at my friends apartment sat afternoon and hung out and played a little football and drank and ate and played games the whole afternoon evening.. It felt as much like thanksgiving as i ever could have hoped while being in a country that hardly knows what turkey is. We all ended up rallying that night and making it out into Seoul and it was, like usual, a pretty good time.

This week i picked up my (1st) fitted suit!!! It is pretty sweet, im really happy the way it turned out. The process started a few weeks ago with getting my measurements taken.. and then going in a week later to have it altered.. and then finnnaallllyyy picking it up for good last tuesday. Getting a sweet fitted suit was something that i knew i wanted to get while i was over here and i am glad that i did it!! Now i just need to find an excuse to wear it...

Also this week I went to, and am now planning on joining, a boxing gym. Ive always been interested in learning how to box and one of my students is something like one of the best in the country for his age group.. and he told me that the gym that he trains/teaches at is walking distance from where i live. So the other day i checked it out and had a pretty good time. The first day i learned a ton and i am planning on going back tomorrow to join for the month.

Well i guess thats about it for now.. i cant believe that its December already!! November FLEW by and all of the sudden Doris visit and winter break are just around the corner.. Im mid way through the 4th season of 'The Wire' which has been really really great. With all of my free time during school i have started following the news more.. all of this Wikileaks stuff is crazy!!! Alright, schools about to be out..

Hope all is well in America