Update, Update!

Once again I have gotten pretty damn lazy with this blog thing. I don't know why I have a hard time keeping up. It's all for my benefit too... that way in a year from now I'll be able to still remember what it was that I did while I was in Korea. I have such a crappy memory, that I have already forgotten what happened last month. Here are some things I remember pretty well.

태풍 곤파스 ~ Typhoon Kompasu
This was my first experience with a typhoon and I hope it was also my last. I had no clue there was a typhoon on its way. None of my coworkers even mentioned it to me. At about 2am [Sept. 2nd] I woke up because the winds seemed to get a lot stronger than usual. It annoyed me because it was way past my bed time of 10pm. Being wide awake, I had nothing better to do than to go online and check my email/fb. I was talking to a couple friends online when all of a sudden the power went out.

The winds got stronger and stronger and I began to get pretty scared. I could hear aluminum roofs flying down the street. The windows in my houses were shaking so much. At around 4am I decided to make a video of what was going on. I was just walking around my house with my camera and a flashlight, trying to document what was going on. It was pretty damn loud, so I decided to close all the windows in the house. After a while, I realized that might not have been the best idea... the windows were rattling so much from all the wind hitting them. I sat in the corner of my bed, covering myself with my blanket, and thinking that the glass from the windows was going to shatter at any moment. Pretty crazy thought, if you can imagine it. I decided to open the windows again and just let all the wind go straight through the house.

With all the commotion, it was impossible to fall asleep. The strong winds did not stop until about 6am. At around 8am I got ready for work. I was a walking zombie. I showed up at the school and everyone was asking me if I felt the typhoon. OF COURSE I FELT IT! I LIVE NEXT DOOR TO THIS SCHOOL! Since we still had no power, they decided to let the students go home right before lunch. We drove 40 minutes to the nearest city with power to have lunch. On our way there, all I could see was destruction. Tons of crops ruined, rice patties flattened, and debris all over. One of our student's farm lost 2,000 chickens. The barn right across the street from my house fell. There was a chunk of siding from an exterior wall at my school that flew away. The covered eating area at the restaurant across the street from my house fell over. A large portion of the shingles on my roof also flew away. And I had 1 window that cracked.

This typhoon was pretty exciting. But hopefully it will be the only one I'll have to g o through. Apparently, it was the biggest typhoon to hit South Korea in 15 years. I'm ad ding this to the "Korea Hates Me" file.

Welcome to Korea, Ana:
Ana finally made it out to Korea!! I have been heading up to Seoul a lot recently to go hang out with Ana. Our first time meeting up was actually a bit tragic. I took a huge suitcase with me, because I was trying to pick up some stuff that I had left at my friend's place in Seoul right before I moved to the village. When I got to Yonsei, Ana's university, we immediately decided to go look for a hotel nearby. From my experience in Korea, I know that where eve r th ere is a bar/club area, a hotel area shou ld be just around the corner. Well, as we tried to find a hotel right by the university... we took the wrong turn.. and wrong it was! We ended up walking around Seoul in search of a damn hotel for about 3 hours. Yes, 3 damn hours in th e rain and in the dark. And the part that pissed me off was the we eventually found a hotel... about 3 blocks from whe re we initially began our journey. We were exhausted, but decided to celebrate our reunion by having a nice Korean meal at what might have been 2 in the morning.

The next day I got to play tour guide and we did about 9 hours of touring around some of the city. We covered a good amount, but no where near finished. Once again, tons of walking. That night we got ready to go out... all dressed up, hair did, cologne, and all... Ana got her make up and all... While I was looking up clubs to hit up, Ana decided to take a power nap. About 15 mins later I decided to join as well. Little did we know this was going to be the extent of our 'crazy' party night. That's right, we got ready just to hit the sack!

Since then, we've met up quite a few times and have actually enjoyed ourselves pretty well. Our most recent adventure was a trip to Jeju Island... the Hawaii of Korea! I'll post about that later.

"Alex 선생님" aka "Alex Teacher"
Alright, I think I should let you all know that I'm actually loving the job. There is one school [Nakdong] that I like more than the other [Cheonbuk]. But in the end, I like what I do at both schools. The students are fun. Sometimes I can get annoyed, but it's cool because all I have to do is get through a 40 minute class with that particular class, then on to the next class. I feel pretty busy most of the time, I am teaching 32 hours a week and so only 8 hours to 'lesson plan.' But I still manage to get it done. Sometimes I just think of stuff to do right on the spot. At times, I wish my class would be longer than just 40 minutes. I feel very fortunate to say that I'm loving this job. Probably the first time I can say that about any job I've had [with the exception of being a desk attendant at Bhood].
The picture on the left are my 3rd/4th graders at Cheonbuk. The picture on the right is of some of my 5th/6th graders at Nakdong! Awesome kids.